/ 




Front. 



"who's tour fat friend? 



See p. 417 



THE 



Wits and Beaux of Society. 



BY , 

GRACE AND PHILIP WHARTON, 

AUTHORS OF "THE QUEENS OF SOCIETY." 

With Illustrations from Drawings by 

H. K, BROWNE AND JAMES GODWIN 
Engraved hy the BROTHERS DALZIEL, 

NEW EDITION. 





LONDON : 
i^LORGE ROUT LEDGE AND SONS, 

THE BROADWAY. LUDGATE. 

NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET. 

1871. 



-^ 









/ 



^/'r 




/70 



CONTENTS. 



Preface to the Second Edition 
Preface to the First Edition 



p. XI 
p. XV 



GEORGE VILLIERS, SECOND DUKE OF BUCK- 
INGHAM. 

. tgns of the Restoration. — Samuel Pepys in his Glory. — A Royal Company. — 
Pepys ' ready to Weep.' — ^The Playmate of Charles II. — George Villiers's 
Inheritance. — Two Gallant Young Noblemen. — The Brave Francis Villiers. 
— After the Battle of Worcester. — Disguising the King. — Villiers in Hiding. 
— He appears as a Mountebank. — Buckingham's Habits. — A Daring 
Adventure. — Cromwell's Saintly Daughter.^ — Villiers and the Rabbi. — The 
Buckingham Pictures and Estates. — York House. — Villiers returns to 
England. — Poor Mar)'' Fairfax. — Villiers in the Tower. — Abraham Cowley, 
the Poet. — The Greatest Ornament of Whitehall. — Buckingham's Wit and 
Beauty. — Flecknoe's Opinion of Him. — His Duel with the Earl of Shrews- 
bury. — Villiers as a Poet. — As a Dramatist. — A Fearful Censure ! — Villiers's 
Influence in Parliament. — A Scene in the Lords. — The Duke of Ormond 
in Danger. — Colonel Blood's Outrages. — Wallingford House and Ham 
House. — ' Madame Ellen.' — The Cabal. — Villiers again in the Tower. — A 
Change. — The Duke of York's Theatre. — Buckingham and the Princess of 
^Orange. — His last Hours. — His Religion. — Death of Villiers. — The Duchess 
of Buckingham. . . . . . . . p. i 

COUNT DE GRAMMONT, ST. EVREMOND, AND 
LORD ROCHESTER. 

De Grammont's Choice. — His Influence with Turenne. — Tlie Church or the 
Army? — An Adventure at Lyons. — A brilliant Idea. — Dc Grammont's 
Generosity. — A Horse 'for the Cards.' — Knight-Cicisbeism. — De Cjram- 
mont's first IvOve. — His Witty Attacks on Mazarin. — Anne Lucie dc la 
Mothe Houdancourt. — Beset with Snares, — De Grammont's Visits to 
England.— Charles II. — The Court of Charles II. — Introduction of 
Country-dances. — Norman Peculiarities. — St. Evremond, the Handsome 
Norman. — THe most Beautiful Woman in Europe. — Hortenso Mancini's 
Adventures. — Madame Maznrin's House at C'iiclsca. — Anecdote of I^orcl 
Dorset. — Lord Rochester in liis Zcniih. — His Courage and Wit.— 



IV Contents. 

Rochester's Pranks in the City. — Credulity, Past and Present. — 'Dr. 
Bendo,' and La Belle Jennings. — La Triste Heritiere. — Elizabeth, Coun- 
tess of Rochester. — Retribution and Reformation. — Conversion. — Beaux 
without Wit. — Little Jermyn. — An Incomparable Beauty. — Anthony 
Hamilton, De Grammont's Biographer. — The Three Courts. — ' La Belle 
Hamilton.' — Sir Peter Lely's Portrait of her. — The Household Deity of 
Wliitehall. — Who shall have the Caleche? — A Chaplain in Livery. — De 
Grammont's Last Hours. — What might he not have been? . p. 4.1 

BEAU FIELDING. 

On Wits and Beaux. — Scotland Yard in Charles H.'s day. — Orlando of 'The 
Tatler.' — Beau Fielding, Justice of the Peace. — Adonis in Search of a Wife. 
— ^The Sham Widow. — Ways and Means. — Barbara Villiers, Lady Castle- 
maine. — Quarrels with the King. — The Beau's Second Marriage. — The 
Last Days of Fops and Beaux. . . . . . p. 80 

OF CERTAIN CLUBS AND CLUB-WITS UNDER 

ANNE. 

The Origin of Clubs. — ^The Establishment of Coffee-houses. — ^The October Club. 
— The Beef-steak Club. — Of certain other Clubs. — The Kit-kat Club. — The 
Romance of the Bowl. — ^The Toasts of the Kit-kat. — ^The Members of the 
Kit-kat.— A good Wit, and a bad Architect.—' Well-natured Garth.'— The 
Poets of the Kit-kat. — Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax. — Chancellor 
Somers. — Charles Sackville, Lord Dorset. — Less celebrated Wits. p. 91 

WILLIAM CONGREVE. 

When and where was he bom? — The Middle Temple. — Congreve finds his 
Vocation. — Verses to Queen Mary. — ^The Tennis-court Theatre. — Congreve 
abandons the Drama. — Jeremy Collier. — ^The Immorality of the Stage. — 
Very improper Things. — Congreve's Writings. — Jeremy's ' Short Views.' — 
Rival Theatres. — Dryden's Funeral. — ^A Tub-Preacher. — Horoscopic Pre- 
dictions. — Dryden's SoHcitude for his Son, — Congreve's Ambition. — Anec- 
dote of Voltaire and Congreve. — ^The Profession of Maecenas. — Congreve's 
Private Life. — ' Malbrook's' Daughter. — Congreve's Death and Burial. 

p. 106 

BEAU NASH. 

The King of Bath.— Nash at Oxford.— 'My Boy Dick. '—Offers of Knighthood. 
— Doing Penance at York. — Days of Folly. — A very Romantic Story. — 
Sickness and Civilization. — Nash descends upon Bath. — Nash's Chef- 
d'oeuvre. — The Ball. — Improvements in the Pump-room, &c. — A Pubhc 
Benefactor.— Life at Bath in Nash's time.— A Compact with the Duke of 
Beaufort. — Gaming at Bath. — Anecdotes of Nash. — 'Miss Sylvia.' — ^A 
Generous Act. — Nash's Sim setting. — A Panegyric. — Nash's Funeral. — His 
Characteristics. . . . . . • • P* 127 

PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON. 

Wharton's Ancestors. — His Early Years. — Marriage at Sixteen. — ^Wharton takes 
leave of his Tutor. — The Young Marquis and the Old Pretender. — Frolic^ 
at Paris. — Zeal for the Orange Cause. — A Jacobite Hero. — The Trial of 
Atterbury. — Wharton's Defence of the Bishop. — Hypocritical Signs of 



Contents, v 

Penitence. — Sir Robert Walpole duped. — Very Trying. — ^The Duke of 
Wharton's 'Whens.' — Military Glory at Gibraltar. — 'Uncle Horace.' - 
Wharton to 'Uncle Horace.' — The Duke's Impudence. — High Treason. — 
Wharton's Ready Wit. — Last Extremities. — Sad Days in Paris. — His Last 
Journey to Spain. — His Death in a Bernardine Convent. . p. 148 

LORD HERVEY. 

George H. arriving from Hanover. — His Meeting with the Queen. — Lady 
Suffolk. — Queen Carohne. — Sir Robert Walpole. — Lord Hervey. — A Set of 
Fine Gentlemen. — ^An Eccentric Race. — Carr, Lord Hervey. — A Fragile 
Boy. — Description of George H.'s Family. — Anne Brett. — A Bitter Cup. — 
The Darhng of the Family. — Evenings at St. James's. — Frederick, Prince 
of Wales. — Ameha Sophia Walmoden. — Poor Queen Caroline ! — Nocturnal 
Diversions of Maids of Honour. — Neighbour George's Orange Chest. — 
Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey. — Rivalry. — Hervey's Intimacy with Lady Mary. 
— Relaxations of the Royal Household. — Bacon's Opinion of Twickenham. 
— A Visit to Pope's Villa. — The Little Nightingale. — The Essence of Small 
Talk. — Hervey's Affectation and Effeminacy. — Pope's Quarrel with Hervey 
and Lady Mary. — Her\'ey's Duel with Pulteney. — ' The Death of Lord 
Hervey : a Drama.' — Queen Carohne's last Drawing-room. — Her Illness 
and Agony. — A Painful Scene. — ^The Truth discovered. — The Queen's 
Dying Bequests. — ^The King's Temper. — Archbishop Potter is sent for. — 
The Duty of Reconciliation. — The Death of Queen Caroline. — A Change in 
Hervey's Life. — Lord Hervey's Death. — Want of Christianity. — Memoirs of 
his Own Time. ....... p. 170 

PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, FOURTH EARL OF 
CHESTERFIELD. 

The King of Table Wits. — Early Years. — Hervey's Description of his Person. — 
Resolutions and Pursuits. — Study of Oratory. — The Duties of an Am- 
bassador. — King George II. 's Opinion of his Chroniclers. — Life in the 
Country. — Melusina, Countess of Walsingham. — George II. and his 
Father's Will. — Dissolving Views. — Madame du Bouchet. — The Broad- 
Bottomed Administration. — Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland in Time of Peril. — 
Reformation of the Calendar. — Chesterfield House. — Exclusiveness. — Re- 
commending 'Johnson's Dictionary.' — 'Old Samuel,' to Chesterfield. — 
Defensive Pride. — The Glass of Fashion. — Lord Scarborough's Friendship 
for Chesterfield. — The Death of Chesterfield's Son. — His Interest in his 
Grandsons. — ' I must go and Rehearse my Funeral.' — Chesterfield's Will. — 
What is a Friend? — Les Mani^res Nobles. — Letters to his Son. p. 210 

THE ABBE SCARRON. 

An Eastern Allegory. — Wlio comes Here? — A Mad Freak and its Consequences. 
— Making an Ablx^ of him. — The May- Fair of Paris. — Scarron's Lament to 
Pellisson. — The Office of the Queen's Patient. — ' Give me a Simple Bene- 
fice.' — Scarron's Description of Himself. — Improvidence and Servility. — 
The Society at Scarron's. — The Witty Conversation. — Francoisc D'Aubig- 
nt^'s Ddbut, — The Sad Story of La Belle Indienne. — Matrimonial Consider- 
ations. — 'Scarron's Wife will live for ever.' — Petits Soupcrs. — Scarron's last 
Moments. — A Lesson for Gay and Grave. ... p. 23S 



vi Contents. 

FRANCOIS DUG DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT AND 
THE DUG DE SAINT-SIMON. 

Rank and Good Breeding. — ^The H6tel de Rochefoucault. — Racine and his 
Plays. — La Rochoucault's Wit and Sensibility. — Saint-Simon's Youth — 
Looking out for a Wife. — Saint-Simon's Court Life. — ^The History of Louise 
de la Valliere. — A mean Act of Louis Quatorze. — ^All has passed away. — 
Saint-Simon's Memoirs of His Own Time. . • . p. 253 

HORAGE WALPOLE. 

The Commoners of England. — Horace's Regret for the Death of his Mother. — 
' Little Horace ' in Arlington Street. — Introduced to George L — Charac- 
teristic Anecdote of George L — Walpole's Education. — Schoolboy Days. — 
Boyish Friendships. — Companionship of Gray. — A Dreary Doom. — ^Wal- 
pole's Description of Youthful Delights. — Anecdote of Pope and Frederic of 
Wales. — The Pomfrets. — Sir Thomas Robinson's Ball. — An Admirable 
Scene. — Political Squibs. — Sir Robert's Retirement from Office. — The 
Splendid Mansion of Houghton. — Sir Robert's Love of Gardening. — ^What 
we owe to the ' Grandes Tours. '^George Vertue. — Men of One Idea. — ^The 
Noble Picture-gallery at Houghton. — The 'Market Pieces.' — Sir Robert's 
Death. — The Granville Faction.— A very good Quarrel. — Twickenham. — 
Strawberry Hill. — The Recluse of Strawberry. — Portraits of the Digby 
Family. — Sacrilege. — Mrs. Damer's Models. — ^The Long Gallery at Straw- 
berry. — ^The Chapel. — 'A Dirty Little Thing.' — ^The Society around Straw- 
berry Hill. — Anne Seymour Conway.— A Man who never Doubted. — Lady 
Sophia Fermor's Marriage. — Horace in Favour. — Anecdote of Sir William 
Stanhope. — A Paper House. — Walpole's Habits. — ^Why did he not Marry? 
— ' Dowagers as Plenty as Flounders.' — Catherine Hyde, Duchess of Queens- 
berry. — Anecdote of Lady Granville. — Kitty Clive. — Death of Horatio Wal- 
pole. — George, third Earl of Orford. — A Visit to Houghton. — Family Mis- 
fortunes. — Poor Chatterton. — ^Walpole's Concern withChatterton. — ^Walpole 
in Paris. -^Anecdote of Madame Geoffrin. — 'Who's that Mr. Walpole?' — 
The Miss Berrys. — Horace's two ' Straw Berries.' — ^Tapping a New Reign. 
— ^The Sign of the Gothic Castle. — Growing Old with Dignity. — Succession 
to an Earldom. — Walpole's Last Hours. — Let us not be Ungrateful, p. 263 

GEORGE SELWYN. 

A Love of Horrors. — Anecdotes of Selwyn's Mother. — Selwjm's College Days. 
— Orator Henley. — Selwyn's Blasphemous Freak. — ^The Profession of a 
Wit. — ^The Thirst for Hazard. — Reynolds's Conversation-Piece. — Selwyn's 
Eccentricities and Witticisms. — A most Important Communication. — ^An 
Amateur Headsman. — The Eloquence of Indifference. — Catching a House- 
breaker. — ^The Family of the Selwyns. — The Man of the People. — Selwyn's 
Parhamentary Career. — ^True Wit. — Some of Selwyn's Witty Sayings. — The 
Sovereignty of the People. — On two kinds of Wit. — Selwyn's Home for 
Children.— Mie-Mie, the Little Italian. — Selwyn's Little Companion taken 
from him.— His Later Days and Death. . . • p. 322 

RIGHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 

Sheridan a Dunce. — Bo3ash Dreams of Literary Fame. — Sheridan in Love. — A 
Nest of Nightingales.— The 'Maid of Bath. '—Captivated by Genius.— 
Sheridan's Elopement with ' Cecilia. ' — His Duel with Captain Matthews. — 
Standards of Ridicule. — Painful Family Estrangements. — Enters Drury 



Co7ite7its, 



Vll 



Lane. — Success of the Famous ' School for Scandal.' — Opinions of Sheri- 
dan and his Influence. — The Literary Club. — Anecdote of Garrick's Admit- 
tance. — Origin of the ' Rejected Addresses.' — New Flights. — Political Am- 
bition. — The Gaming Mania. — Almacks'. — Brookes'. — Black-balled. — ^Two 
Versions of the Election Trick. — St. Stephen's Won. — Vocal Difficulties. — • 
Leads a Double Life. — Pitt's Vulgar Attack. — Sheridan's Happy Retort. — 
Grattan's Quip. — Sheridan's SaUies. — The Trial of Warren Hastings. — 
Wonderful Effect of Sheridan's Eloquence. — ^The Supreme Effort. — The 
Star Culminates. — Native Taste for Swindhng. — A Shrewd but Graceless 
Oxonian. — Duns Outwitted. — The Lawyer Jockeyed. — Adventures with 
Baihffs. — Sheridan's Powers of Persuasion. — House of Commons Greek. — 
Curious Mimicry. — The Royal Boon Company. — Street FroHcs at Night. — 
AnOldTale.— 'All's well that ends well.'— The Fray in St. Giles'.— Un- 
opened Letters. — An Odd Incident. — Reckless Extravagance. — Sporting 
Ambition. — Like Father like Son. — A Severe and Witty Rebuke. — Intem- 
perance. — Convivial Excesses of a Past Day. — ^Worth wins at last. — Bitter 
Pangs. — ^The Scythe of Death. — Sheridan's Second Wife. — Debts of Ho- 
nour. — Drury Lane Burnt. — ^The Owner's Serenity. — Misfortunes never come 
Singly. — The Whitbread Quarrel. — Ruined. — Undone and almost Forsaken. 
— ^The Dead Man Arrested. — ^The Stories fixed on Sheridan. — Extempore 
Wit and Inveterate Talkers. ..... p. 344 

BEAU BRUMMELL. 

Two popular Sciences. — 'Buck Brummell' at Eton. — Investing his Capital. — 
Young Cornet Brummell. — ^The Beau's Studio. — ^The Toilet. — 'Creasing 
Down.' — Devotion to Dress. — A Great Gentleman. — Anecdotes of Brum- 
mell. — ' Don't forget, Brum : Goose at Four !' — Offers of Intimacy resented. 
— Never in love. — Brummell out Hunting. — Anecdote of Sheridan and 
Brummell. — The Beau's Poetical Efforts. — The Value of a Crooked Six- 
pence. — ^The Breach with the Prince of Wales. — 'Who's your Fat Friend ?' 
— The Chmax is reached. — ^The Black-mail of Calais. — George the Greater 
and George the Less. — An Extraordinary Step. — Down the Hill of Life. — 
A Miserable Old Age.— In the Hospice Du Bon Sauveur.— O Young Men 
of this Age, be warned ! . . . . . . p. 400 

THEODORE EDWARD HOOK. 

The Greatest of Modem Wits. — What Coleridge said of Hook. — Hook's Family. 
— Redeeming Points. — Versatility. — Varieties of Hoaxing. — The Black- 
wafered Horse. — The Berners Street Hoax. — Success of the Scheme. — The 
Strop of Hunger. — Kitchen Examinations. — The Wrong House. — Angling 
for an Invitation. — The Hackney-coach Device. — The Plots of Hook and 
Mathews. — Hook's Talents as an Improvisatore. — The Gift becomes his 
Bane. — Hook's Novels. — College Fun. — Baiting a Proctor. — The Punning 
Faculty. — Official Life Opens. — Troublesome Pleasantry. — Charge of Em- 
bezzlement. — Misfortune. —Doubly Disgraced. — No Effort to remove the 
Stain. — Attacks on the Queen. — An Incongruous Mixture. — Specimen of 
the Ramsbottom Letters. — Hook's Scurrility. — Fortune and Popularity.— 
The End. ........ p. 425 

SYDNEY SMITH. 

The 'Wise Wit.'— Oddities of the Father.— Verse-making at Winchester.— 
Curate Life on Salisbury Plain. — Old Edinburgh.- -Its Social and Archi- 
tectural Features. — Making I>ove Metaphysically. — The Old Scottish Sup 
per. — The Men of Mark passing away. — The Band of Young Spirits. — 



viii Contents, 

Brougham's Early Tenacity. — Fitting up Conversations. — ' Old School' 
Ceremonies. — ^The Speculative Society. — A Brilliant Set. — Sydney's Opinion 
of his Friends. — Holland House. — Preacher at the ' Foundling.' — Sydney's 
'Grammar of Life.' — ^The Picture Mania. — ^A Living Comes at Last. — The 
Wit's Ministry. — ^The Parsonage House at Foston-le-Clay. — Country Quiet. 
— ^The Universal Scratcher. — ^Country Life and Country Prejudice. — The 
Genial Magistrate. — Glimpse of Edinburgh Society. — Mrs. Grant of Laggan. — 
A Pension Difficulty. — Jeffrey and Cockburn. — Craigcrook. — Sydney Smith's 
Cheerfulness. — His Rheumatic Armour. — No Bishopric. — Becomes Canon 
of St. Paul's. — Anecdotes of Lord Dudley. — A Sharp Reproof. — Sydney's 
Classification of Society. — Last Strokes of Humour. . ^ p. 455 

GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON, LORD MELCOMBE. 

A Dinner-giving lordly Poet. — A Misfortune for a Man of Society. — Branden- 
burgh House. — 'The Diversions of the Morning.' — Johnson's Opinion of 
Foote. — Churchill and ' The Rosciad. ' — Personal Ridicule in its Proper 
Light. — Wild Specimen of the Poet. — ^Walpole on Dodington's 'Diary.'— 
The best Commentary on a Man's Life. — Leicester House. — Grace Boyle. 
• — Elegant Modes of passing Time. — A sad Day. — What does Dodington 
come here for? — ^The Veteran Wit, Beau, and Politician. — ' Defend us from 
oiir Executors and Editors.' . , ... . P* 493 




31= 



"■■ " M H II II H II n II 31= 



_,,.>|B^'.,,, 



'^ '■ " II 11 n II ■ ! M If n 11 II n r 



SUBJECTS OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS. 



BEAU FIELDING AND THE SHAM WIDOW (Frontispiece.) 85 

VILLIERS IN DISGUISE— THE MEETING WITH HIS SISTER 14 

DE GRAMMONTS MEETING WITH LA BELLE HAMILTON 74 

WHARTON'S ROGUISH PRESENT 152 

A SCENE BEFORE KENSINGTON PALACE— GEORGE II. AND 

QUEEN CAROLINE 172 

POPE AT HIS VILLA— DISTINGUISHED VISITORS 194 

A ROYAL ROBBER 217 

DR. JOHNSON AT LORD CHESTERFIELD'S 226 

SCARRON AND THE WITS— FIRST APPEARANCE OF LA BELLE 

INDIENNE 247 

STRAWBERRY HILL FROM THE THAMES 289 

SELWtN ACKNOWLEDGES 'THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE 

PEOPLE' 338 

THE FAMOUS 'LITERARY CLUB' 356 

A TREASURE FOR A LADY— SHERIDAN AND THE LAWYER 374 

THE BEST THING BEAU BRUMMELL EVER SAID ... 417 

THEODORE HOOK'S ENGINEERING FROLIC 438 

SYDNEY SMITH'S WITFY ANSWER TO THE OLD PARISH 

CLERK 476 




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



JSSSN revising this Publication, it has scarcely been found 
necessary to recall a single opinion relative to the 
subject of the Work. The general impressions of 




characters adopted by the Authors have received little modifi- 
cation from any remarks elicited by the appearance of * The 
Wits and Beaux of Society/ 

It is scarcely to be expected that even our descendants will 
know much more of the Wits and Beaux of former days than 
we now do. The chests at Strawberry Hill are cleared of their 
contents ; Horace Walpole's latest letters are before us ; Pepys 
and Evelyn have thoroughly dramatized the days of Charles H. ; 
Lord Hervey's Memoirs have laid bare the darkest secrets of 
the Court in which he figures ; voluminous memoirs of the less 
historic characters among the Wits and Beaux have been pub- 
lished ; still it is possible that some long-disregarded treasury 
of old letters, like that in the Gallery at Wotton, may come to 
light. From that precious deposit a housemaid — blotted for 
ever be her name from memory's page — was i)urloining sheets 
of yellow paper, with antiquated writing on them, to light her 
fires with, when the late William Upcott came to the rescue, 



xii Preface to Second Edition. 

and saved Evelyn's ' Diary' for a grateful world. It is just 
possible that such a discovery may again be made, and that 
the doings of George Villiers, or the exile life of Wharton, or 
the inmost thoughts of other Wits and Beaux may be made to 
appear in clearer lights than heretofore ; but it is much more 
likely that the popular opinions about these witty, worthless 
men are substantially true. 

All that has been collected, therefore, to form this work — ' 
and, as in the ^ Queens of Society,' every known source has 
been consulted — assumes a sterling value as being collected; 
and, should hereafter fresh materials be disinterred from any 
old library closet in the homes of some one descendant of our 
heroes, advantage will be gladly taken to improve, correct, and 
complete the lives. 

One thing must, in justice, be said : if they have been 
written freely, fearlessly, they have been written without pas- 
sion or prejudice. The writers, though not quite of the stamp 
of persons who would never have * dared to address' any of the 
subjects of their biography, ' save with courtesy and obeisance,' 
have no wish to 'trample on the graves' of such very amusing 
personages as the ' Wits and Beaux of Society.' They have 
even been lenient to their memory, hailing every good trait 
gladly, and pointing out with no unsparing hand redeeming 
virtues ; and it cannot certainly be said, in this instance, that 
the good has been ' interred with the bones ' of the personages 
herein described, although the evil men do, 'will live after 
them.' 

But whilst a biographer is bound to give the fair as well as 
the dark side of his subject, he has still to remember that bio- 
graphy is a trust, and that it should not be an eulogium. It is 
his duty to reflect that in many instances it must be regarded 
even as a warning. 

The moral conclusions of these lives of ' Wits and Beaux' 



Preface to Second Edition. xiii 

are, it is admitted, just : vice is censured ; folly rebuked ; un- 
gentlemanly conduct, even in a beau of the highest polish, ex- 
posed ; irreligion finds no toleration under gentle names — 
heartlessness no palliation from its being the way of the world. 
There is here no separate code allowed for men who live in the 
world, and for those who live out of it. The task of pourtray- 
ing such characters as the 'Wits and Beaux of Society' is a 
responsible one, and does not involve the mere attempt to 
amuse, or the mere desire to abuse, but requires truth and dis- 
crimination ; as embracing just or unjust views of such charac- 
ters, it may do much harm or much good. Nevertheless, in 
spite of these obvious considerations, there do exist worthy 
persons, even in the present day, so unreasonable as to take 
offence at the revival of old stories anent their defunct grand- 
fathers, though those very stories were circulated by accredited 
writers employed by the families themselves. Some individuals 
are scandalized when a man who was habitually drunk, is 
called a drunkard ; and ears polite cannot bear the application 
of plain names to well-known delinquencies. 

There is something foolish, but respectably foolish, in this 
wish to shut out light which has been streaming for years over 
these old tombs and memories. The flowers that are cast on 
such graves cannot, however, cause us to forget the corruption 
within and underneath. In consideration, nevertheless, of a 
pardonable weakness, all expressions that can give pain, or 
which have been said to give pain, have been, in this Second 
Edition, omitted ; and whenever a mis-statement has crept in, 
care has been taken to amend the error. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 




j|HE success of the 'Queens of Society' will have 
pioneered the way for the * Wits and Beaux :' with 
whom, during the holiday time of their lives, these 
fair ladies were so greatly associated. The * Queens,' whether 
all wits or not, must have been the cause of wit in others ; 
their influence over dandyism is notorious : their power to make 
or mar a man of fashion, almost historical. So far, a chronicle of 
the sayings and doings of the 'Wits ' is worthy to serve as ^pen- 
da?it\.o that of the ^Queens :' happy would it be for society if the 
annals of the former could more closely resemble the biography 
of the latter. But it may not be so : men are subject to 
temptations, to failures, to delinquencies, to calamities, of which 
women can scarcely dream, and which they can only lament 
and pity. 

Our 'Wits,' too — to separate them from the 'Beaux ' — were 
men who often took an active part in the stirring events of 
their day: they assumed to be statesmen, though, too fre- 
quently, they were only politicians.* They were brave and 



xvi Preface to First Edition, 

loyal : indeed, in. the time of the Stuarts, all the Wits were 
Cavaliers, as well as the Beaux. One hears of no repartee 
among Cromweirs followers; no dash, no merriment, in Fair- 
fax's staff; eloquence, indeed, but no wit in the Parliamen- 
tarians; and, in truth, in the second Charles's time, the king 
might have headed the Hsts of the Wits himself— such a capital 
man as his Majesty is known to have been for a wet evening 
or a dull Sunday ; such a famous teller of a story — such a 
perfect diner-out : no wonder that in his reign we had George 
Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham of that family, ^ man- 
kind's epitome,' who had every pretension to ever}'- accom- 
plishment combined in himself No wonder we could attract 
De Grammont and Saint Evremond to our court; and own, 
somewhat to our discredit be it allowed, Rochester and Beau 
Fielding. Every reign has had its wits, but those in Charles's 
time were so numerous as to distinguish the era by an especial 
brilliancy. Nor let it be supposed that these annals do not 
contain a moral application. They show how little the spark- 
ling attributes herein pourtrayed conferred happiness ; how far 
more the rare, though certainly real touches of genuine feel- 
ing and strong affection, which appear here and there even in 
the lives of the most thoughtless ' Wits and Beaux,' elevate 
the character in youth, or console the spirit in age. They 
prove how wise has been that change in society which now re- 
pudiates the ' Wit ' as a distinct class ; and requires general in- 
telligences as a compensation for lost repartees, or long obsolete 
practical jokes. 

' Men are not all evil :' so in the life of George Villiers, we 
find him kind-hearted, and free from hypocrisy. His old 
servants — and the fact speaks in extenuation of one of our 
wildest Wits and Beaux — loved him faithfully. De Grammont, 
we all own, has little to redeem him except his good-nature ; 
Rochester's latest days were almost hallowed by his penitence. 



Preface to First Editio7i. xvii 

Chesterfield is saved by his kindness to the Irish, and his 
affection for his son. Horace Walpole had human affections, 
though a most inhuman pen : and Wharton was famous for his 
good-humour. 

The periods most abounding the Wit and the Beau have, 
of course, been those most exempt from wars, and rumours 
of wars. The Restoration ; the early period of the Augustan 
age; the commencement of the Hanoverian dynasty, — have 
all been enlivened by Wits and Beaux, who came to light like 
mushrooms after a storm of rain, as soon as the political hori- 
zon was clear. We have Congreve, who affected to be the 
Beau as well as the Wit ; Lord Hervey, more of the courtier 
than the Beau — a Wit by inheritance — a peer, assisted into 
a pre-eminent position by royal preference, and consequent 
prestige; and all these men were the offspring of the particular 
state of the times in which they figured : at earlier periods, 
they would have been deemed effeminate ; in later ones, 
absurd. 

Then the scene shifts : intellect had marched forward gigan- 
tically : the world is grown exacting, disputatious, critical, and 
such men as Horace Walpole and Brinsley Sheridan appear ; 
the characteristics of wit which adorned that age being well 
diluted by the feebler talents of Selwyn and Hook. 

Of these, and others, ' table traits^ and other traits, are here 
given : brief chronicles of their life's stage, over which a cur- 
tain has so long been dropped, are supplied carefully from well- 
established sources : it is with characters, not with literary 
history, that we deal ; and do our best to make the portrai- 
tures life-like, and to bring forward old memories, which, with- 
out the stamp of antiquity, might be suffered to pass into 
obscurity. 

Your Wit and your Beau, be he French or l^nglisli, is no 
mcdicL'v.il personage: the aristocracy of the present day rank 

b 



xviii Preface to First Edition. 

among his immediate descendants : he is a creature of a 
modem and an artificial age; and with his career are 
mingled many features of civilized life, manners, habits, and 
traces of family history which are still, it is believed, interest- 
ing to the majority of English readers, as they have long been 
to 

Grace and Philip Wharton. 

October^ i860. 




THE 

WITS AND BEAUX OF SOCIETY. 



GEORGE VILLIERS, SECOND DUKE OF 
BUCKINGHAM. 

Signs of the Restoration. — Samuel Pepys in his Glory. — ^A Royal Company. — 
Pepys ' ready to Weep.' — The Playmate of Charles II. — George Villiers's 
Inheritance. — Two Gallant Young Noblemen. — The Brave Francis VilHers. 
— After the Battle of Worcester. — Disguising the King. — Villiers in Hiding. 
— He appears as a Mountebank. — Buckingham's Habits. — A Daring 
Adventure. — Cromwell's Saintly Daughter. — Villiers and the Rabbi. — The 
Buckingham Pictures and Estates. — York House. — Villiers returns to 
England. — Poor Mary Fairfax. — Villiers in the Tower. — Abraham Cowley, 
the Poet. — The Greatest Ornament of Whitehall. — Buckingham's Wit and 
Beauty. — Flecknoe's Opinion of Him. — His Duel with the Earl of Shrews- 
bury. — Villiers as a Poet. — As a Dramatist. — A Fearful Censure ! — Villiers's 
Influence in Parliament. — A Scene in the Lords. — The Duke of Ormond 
in Danger. — Colonel Blood's Outrages. — Walhngford House and Ham 
House. — ' Madame Ellen.' — The Cabal. — Villiers again in the Tower. — A 
Change. — The Duke of York's Theatre. — Buckingiiam and the Princess of 
Orange. — His last Hours. — His Religion. — Death of Villiers. — The Duchess 
of Buckingham. 

AMUEL PEPYS, the weather-glass of his time, hails 
the first glimpse of the Restoration of Charles II* 
in his usual quaint terms and vulgar sycophancy. 
* To Westminster Hall,' says he ; ' where I heard how the 
Parliament had this day dissolved themselves, and did pass 
very cheerfully through the Hall, and the Speaker without his 
mace. The whole Hall was joyful thereat, as well as them- 
selves; and now they begin to talk loud of the king.' And 
the evening was closed, he further tells us, with a large bonfire 
in the Exchange, and people called out, ' God bless King 
Charles !' 

Tliis v/as in M:irdi 1660: and during that spring Pepys was 

I 




2 Signs of the Restoration, 

noting down how he did not think it possible that my ^Lord 
Protector/ Richard Cromwell, should come into power again; 
how there were great hopes of the king's arrival ; how Monk^ 
the Restorer, was feasted at Mercers' Hall (Pepys's own 
especial) ; how it was resolved that a treaty be offered to the 
king, privately ; how he resolved to go to sea with ^ my lord ;' 
and how, while they lay at Gravesend, the great affair which 
brought back Charles Stuart was virtually accomplished. Then, 
with various parentheses, inimitable in their way, Pepys carries 
on his narative. He has left his father's ^ cutting-room ' to 
take care of itself; and finds his cabin little, though his bed is 
convenient, but is certain, as he rides at anchor with ^ my lord,' 
in the ship, that the king ^ must of necessity come in,' and the 
vessel sails round and anchors in Lee Roads. ' To the castles 
about Deal, where our fleet' (our fleets the saucy son of a 
tailor !) ' lay and anchored ; great was the shoot of guns from 
the castles, and ships, and our answers.' Glorious Samuel ! in 
his element, to be sure. 

Then the wind grew high : he began to be ' dizzy, and 
squeamish ;' nevertheless employed ^ Lord's Day ' in looking 
through the lieutenant's glass at two good merchantmen, and 
the women in them ; * being pretty handsome ;' then in the 
afternoon he first saw Calais, and was pleased, though it was at 
a great distance. All eyes were looking across the Channel 
just then — for the king was at Flushing; and, though the 
' Fanatiques ' still held their heads up high, and the Cavaliers 
also talked high on the other side, the cause that Pepys was 
bound to, still gained ground. 

Then ^they begin to speak freely of King Charles;' 
churches in the City, Samuel declares, were setting up his 
arms ; merchant-ships — more important in those days — were 
hanging out his colours. He hears, too, how the Mercers^ 
Company were making a statue of his gracious Majesty to 
set up in the Exchange. Ah ! Pepys's heart is merry : he has 
forty shillings (some shabby perquisite) given him by Captain 
Cowes of the ^Paragon;' and ^ my lord ' in the evening ^falls 
to singing ' a song upon the Rump to the tune of the 
' Blacksmith.' 



Samuel Pcpys in his Glory, 3 

The hopes of the CavaHer party are hourly increasing, and 
those of Pepys we may be sure also ; for Pirn, the tailor, 
spends a morning in his cabin ' putting a great many ribbons 
to a sail.' And the king is to be brought over suddenly, ^my 
lord ' tells him : and indeed it looks like it, for the sailors are 
drinking Charles's health in the streets of Deal, on their knees; 
Svhich, methinks,' says Pepys, *is a little too much;' and 
' methinks ' so, worthy Master Pepys, also. 

Then how the news of the Parliamentary vote of the king's 
declaration was received ! Pepys becomes eloquent. 

^ He that can fancy a fleet (like ours) in her pride, with 
pendants loose, guns roaring, caps flying, and the loud " Vive 
le Roi r echoed from one ship's company to another ; he, and 
he only, can apprehend the joy this enclosed vote was received 
with, or the blessing he thought himself possessed of that 
bore it.' 

Next, orders come for ^ my lord ' to sail forthwith to the 
king ; and the painters and tailors set to work, Pepys super- 
intending, ^cutting out some pieces of yellow cloth in the 
fashion of a crown and C. R. ; and putting it upon a fine 
sheet ' — and that is to supersede the States' arms, and is 
finished and set up. And the next day, on May 14, the 
Hague is seen plainly by 11s, ' my lord going up in his night- 
gown into the cuddy.' 

And then they land at the Hague ; some ^ nasty Dutch- 
men ' come on board to offer their boats, and get money, 
which Pepys does not like ; and in time they find themselves 
in the Hague, * a most neat place in all respects :' salute the 
Queen of Bohemia and the Prince of Orange — afterwards 
AVilHam HI. — and find at their place of supper nothing but a 
' sallet ' and two or three bones of mutton provided for ten 
of us, 'which was very strange. Nevertheless, on they sail, 
having returned to the fleet, to Schevelling : and, on the 23rd 
of the month, go to meet the king ; who, *on getting into the 
boat, did kiss my lord with much aftection.' And * extraor- 
dinary press of good company,' and great mirth all day, 
announced the Restoration. Nevertheless Charles's clothes 



4 A Royal Company r 

had not been, till this time, Master Pepys is assured, worth 
forty shillings — and he, as a connoisseur, was scandalized at 
the fact. 

And now, before we proceed, let us ask who worthy Samuel 
Pepys was, that he should pass such stringent comments on 
men and manners ? His origin was lowly, although his family 
ancient ; his father having followed, until the Restoration, the 
calling of a tailor. Pepys, vulgar as he was, had nevertheless 
received an university education ; first entering Trinity College, 
Cambridge, as a sizar. To our wonder we find him marrying 
furtively and independently ; and his wife, at fifteen, was glad 
with her husband to take up an abode in the house of a 
relative. Sir Edward Montagu, afterwards Earl of Sandwich, the 
*my lord' under whose shadow Samuel Pepys dwelt in rever- 
ence. By this nobleman's influence Pepys for ever left the 
'cutting-room;' he acted first as secretary, (always as toad- 
eater, one would fancy), then became a clerk in the Admiralty ; 
and as such went, after the Restoration, to live in Seething 
Lane, in the parish of St. Olave, Hart Street — and in St. Olave 
his mortal part was ultimately deposited. 

So much for Pepys. See him now, in his full-buttoned wig, 
and best cambric neckerchief, looking out for the king and his 
suit, who are coming on board the ' Nazeby.' 

' Up, and made myself as fine as I could, with the linning 
stockings on, and wide canons that I bought the other day 
at the Hague.' So began he the day. ' All day nothing but 
lords and persons of honour on board, that we were exceeding 
full. Dined in great deal of state, the royalle company by 
themselves in the coache, which was a blessed sight to see.' 
This royal company consisted of Charles, the Dukes of York 
and Gloucester, his brothers, the Queen of Bohemia, the Prin- 
cess Royal, the Prince of Orange, afterwards William III. — all 
of whose hands Pepys kissed, after dinner. The King and 
Duke of York changed the names of the ships. The 'Rumpers,' 
as Pepys calls the Parliamentarians, had given one the name 
of the ' Nazeby ;' and that was now christened the ' Charles :' 
' Richard ' was changed into ' James.' The ' Speaker ' into 
'Mary,' the 'Lambert,' was 'Henrietta,' and so on. How 



Pcpys ' Ready to Weep! 5 

merr>' the king must have been whilst he thus turned the 
Roundheads, as it were, off the ocean ; and how he walked 
here and there, up and down, (quite contrary to what Samuel 
Pepys ' expected,') and fell into discourse of his escape from 
Worcester, and made Samuel ^ ready to weep ' to hear of his 
travelling four days and three nights on foot, up to his knees 
in dirt, with ' nothing but a green coat and a pair of breeches 
on,' (worse and worse, thought Pepys,) and a pair of country 
shoes that made his feet sore ; and how, at one place he was 
made to drink by the servants, to show he was not a Round- 
head ; and how, at another place — and Charles, the best teller 
of a story in his own dominions, may here have softened his 
tone — the master of the house, an innkeeper, as the king was 
standing by the fire, with his hands on the 1 ack of a chair, 
kneeled down and kissed his hand ' privately/ saying he could 
not ask him who he was, but bid ' God bless him, where he 
was going 1' 

Then, rallying after this touch of pathos, Charles took his 
liearers over to Fecamp, in France — thence to Rouen, where, 
he said, in his easy, irresistible way, ^ I looked so poor that 
the people went into the rooms before I went away, to see if I 
liad not stolen something or other.' 

With what reverence and sympathy did our Peyys listen ; but 
he was forced to hurry off to get Lord Berkeley a bed ; and 
with ^ much ado' (as one may beHeve) he did get ^him to 
bed with My Lord Middlesex ;' so, after seeing these two 
peers of the realm in that dignified predicament — two in a 
l)ed — ' to my cabin again,' where the company were still talk- 
ing of the king's difficulties, and how his Majesty was fain to 
cat a piece of bread and cheese out of a poor body's pocket ; 
and, at a Catholic house, how he lay a good while Mn the 
Priest's Hole, for privacy.' 

In all these hairbreadth escapes — of which the king spoke 
with infinite humour and good feeling — one name was per- 
petually introduced : — George — George Villiers, Viilcrs^ as 
the royal narrator called him ; for the name was so pronounced 
formerly. And well he might ; for George Villiers had been 
his playmate, classfellow, nay, bedfellow sOiHetimes, in priests* 



6 The Playmate of Charles II. 

holes ; their names, their haunts, their hearts, were all assimi- 
lated; and misfortune had bound them closely to each other. 
To George Villiers let us now return ; he is waiting for his 
royal master on the other side of the Channel — in England. 
And a strange character have we to deal with : — 

• A man so various, that he seemed to be 
Not one, but all mankind's epitome : 
Stiff in opinions, always in the. wrong. 
Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; 
But, in the course of one revolving moon, 
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buftbon. '* 

Such was George Villiers : the Alcibiades of that age. Let 
us trace one of the most romantic, and brilliant, and unsatis- 
factory lives that has ever been written. 

George Villiers was born at Wallingford House, in the parish 
of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, on the 30th January, 1627. The 
Admiralty now stands on the site of the mansion in which he 
first saw the light. His father was George Villiers, the fa- 
vourite of James I. and of Charles I. ; his mother, the Lady 
Katherine Manners, daughter and heiress of Francis, Earl of 
Rutland. Scarcely was he a year old, when the assassination 
of his father, by Felton, threw the affairs of his family into 
confusion. His mother, after the Duke of Buckingham's 
death, gave birth to a son, Francis ; who was subsequently, 
savagely killed by the Roundheads, near Kingston. Then the 
Duchess of Buckingham very shortly married again, and uniting 
herself to Randolph Macdonald, Earl of Antrim, became a 
rigid Catholic. She was therefore lost to her children, or 
rather, they were lost to her ; for King Charles L, who had 
promised to be a ^ husband to her, and a father to her children,' 
removed them from her charge, and educated them with the 
royal princes. 

The youthful peer soon gave indications of genius ; and all 
that a careful education could do, was directed to improve his 
natural capacity under private tutors. He went to Cambridge; 
and thence, under the care of a preceptor named Aylesbury, 
travelled into France. He was accompanied by his young, 

* Dryden. 



George Villierss Inlieritance. 7 

Iiandsome, fine-spirited brother, Fra,ncis ; and this was the sun- 
shine of his Hfe. His father had indeed left him, as his biogra- 
pher Brian Fairfax expresses it, ^the greatest name in England ; 
his mother, the greatest estate of any subject.' With this in- 
heritance there had also descended to him the wonderful beauty, 
the matchless grace, of his ill-fated father. Great abilities, cou- 
rage, fascination of manners, were also his ; but he had not 
been endowed with firmness of character, and was at once 
energetic and versatile. Even at this age, the qualities which 
became his ruin were clearly discoverable. 

George Villiers was recalled to England by the troubles which 
drove the king to Oxford, and which converted that academical 
city into a garrison, its under-graduates into soldiers, its ancient 
halls into barrack-rooms. Villiers was on this occasion entered 
at Christ Church : the youth's best feelings were aroused, and 
his loyalty was engaged to one to whom his father owed so 
much. He was now a young man of twenty-one years of age 
— able to act for himself; and he went heart and soul into the 
cause of his sovereign. Never was there a gayer, a more pre- 
possessing Cavalier. He could charm even a Roundhead. 
The harsh and Presbyterian-minded Bishop Burnet, has told us 
that ' he was a man of a noble presence ; had a great liveliness 
of wit, and a peculiar faculty of turning everything into ridicule, 
with bold figures and natural descriptions.' How invaluable 
he must have been in the Common-rooms at Oxford, then turned 
into guard-rooms, his eye upon some unlucky volunteer Don, 
who had put off liis clerkly costume for a buff jacket, and could 
not manage his drill. Irresistible as his exterior is declared to 
have been, the original mind of Villiers was even far more in- 
fluential. De Grammont tells us, ' he was extremely handsome, 
but still thought himself much more so than he really was ; 
although he had a great deal of discernment, yet his vanities 
made him mistake some civilities as intended for his person 
which were only bestowed on his wit and drollery.' 

But this very vanity, so unpleasant in an old man, is only 
amusing in a younger wit. Whilst thus a gallant of the court 
and camp, the young nobleman proved himself to be no less 
brave than witty. * Juvenile as he was, with a brother still 



S Tzvo Gallant Young Noblemen, 

younger, tliey fought on the royaUst side at Lichfield, in the 
storming of the Cathedral Close. For thus allowing their lives 
to be endangered, their mother blamed Lord Gerard, one of the 
Duke's guardians ; whilst the Parliament seized the pretext of 
confiscating their estates, which were afterwards returned to 
them, on account of their being under age at the time of con- 
fiscation. The youths were then placed under the care of the 
Earl of Northumberland, by whose permission they travelled in 
France and Italy, where they appeared — their estates having 
been restored — ^with jDrincely magnificence. Nevertheless, on 
hearing of the imprisonment of Charles I. in the Isle of Wight, 
the gallant youths returned to England and joined the army 
under the Earl of Holland, who was defeated near Nonsuch, in 
Surrey. 

A sad episode in the annals of these eventful times is pre- 
sented in the fate of the handsome, brave Francis Villiers. His 
murder, for one can call it by no other name, shows how keenly 
the personal feelings of the Roundheads were engaged in this 
national quarrel. Under most circumstances. Englishmen would 
have spared the youth, and respected the gallantry of the free 
young soldier, who, planting himself against an oak-tree which 
grew in the road, refused to ask for quarter, but defended him- 
self against several assailants. But the name of Villiers was 
hateful in Puritan ears. ' Hew them down, root and branch !' 
was the sentiment that actuated the soldiery. His very loveli- 
ness exasperated their vengeance. At last, * with nine wounds 
on his beautiful face and body,' says Fairfax, ' he was slain.' 
' The oak-tree,' writes the devoted servant, ' is his monument,' 
and the letters of F. V. were cut in it in his day. His body 
was conveyed by water to Vork House, and was entombed with 
that of his father, in the Chapel of Henry VII. 

His brother fled towards St. Neot's, where he encountered a 
strange kind of peril. Tobias Rustat attended him ; and was 
with him in the rising in Kent for King Charles L, wherein the 
Duke was engaged ; and they, being put to the flight, the Duke's 
helmet, by a brush under a tree, was turned upon his back, and 
tied so fast with a string under his throat, ' that without the pre- 



After the Battle of Worcester, g> 

sent help of T. R./ writes Fairfax, 4thad undoubtedly choked 
him, as I have credibly heard. "^ 

Whilst at St. Neot's, the house in which Villiers had taken 
refuge was surrounded with soldiers. He had a stout heart, and 
a dexterous hand ; he took his resolution ; rushed out upon his 
foes, killed the officer in command, galloped off and joined the 
Prince in the Downs. 

The sad story of Charles I. was played out ; but Villiers re- 
mained stanch, and was permitted to return and to accompany 
Prince Charles into Scotland. Then came the battle of Wor- 
cester in 165 1 : there Charles II. showed himself a worthy de- 
scendant of James IV. of Scotland. He resolved to conquer 
or die : with desperate gallantry the English Cavaliers and the 
Scotch Highlanders seconded the monarch's valiant onslaught on 
Cromwell's horse, and the invincible Life Guards were almost 
driven back by the shock. But they were not seconded; 
Charles II. had his horse twice shot under him, but, nothing 
daunted, he was the last to tear himself away from the field, and 
then only upon the solicitations of his friends. 

Charles retired to Kidderminster that evening. The Duke 
of Buckingham, the gallant Lord Derby, Wilmot, afterwards 
P^arl of Rochester, and some others, rode near him. They were 
followed by a small body of horse. Disconsolately they rode 
on northwards, a faithful band of sixty being resolved to escort 
his Majesty to Scodand. At length they halted on Kinver 
Heath, near Kidderminster : their guide having lost the way. 
In this extremity Lord Derby said that he had been received 
kindly at an old house in a secluded woody countr}^, between 
Tong Casde and Brewood, on the l)orders of Staffordshire. It 
was named ' Boscobel,' he said ; and that word has henceforth 
conjured up to the mind's eye the remembrance of a band of 
tired heroes, riding through woody glades to an ancient house, 
where shelter was given to the worn-out horses and scarcely less 
harassed riders. 

* The day after the bnttlo at Kiii^^ston, tlic Duke's rstatos wrrr cniitiscatrvl. 
(8th July, 1648.) — Nichol's History of Leicestershire, iii. 213 ; who also says that 
the Duke offered marriage to one of the daughters of Cromwell, but was ro- 
fuscd. He went abroad in 1648, but returned with Charles H. to Scotland in 
1630, and again escaped to France after the battle of Worcester, 1651. The sale 
of the pictures would seem to have commenced during his first exile. 



JO Disguising the King. 

But not so rapidly did they in reality proceed. A Catholic 
family, named Giffard, were living at White-Ladies, about 
twenty six miles from Worcester. This was only about half a 
mile from Boscobel : it had been a convent of Cistercian nuns, 
whose long white cloaks of old had once been seen, ghost-like, 
amid forest glades or on hillock green. The White-Ladies had 
other memories to grace it besides those of holy vestals, or of 
unholy Cavaliers. From the time of the Tudors, a respectable 
family named Somers had owned the White-Ladies, and inha- 
bited it since its white-garbed tenants had been turned out, and 
the place secularized. ' Somers's House,' as it was called, 
(though more happily, the old name has been restored,) had 
received Queen Elizabeth on her progress. The richly culti- 
vated old conventual gardens had supplied the Queen with 
some famous pears, and, in the fulness of her approval of the 
fruit, she had added them to the City arms. At that time one 
of these vaunted pear-trees stood securely in the market-place of 
Worcester. 

At the White-Ladies, Charles rested for half an hour ; and 
here he left his garters, waistcoat, and other garments, to avoid 
discovery, ere he proceeded. They were long kept as relics. 

The mother of Lord Somers had been placed in this old 
house for security, for she was on the eve of giving birth to the 
future statesman, who was born in that sanctuary just at this 
time. His father at that very moment commanded a troop of 
horse in Cromwell's army, so that the risk the Cavaliers ran was 
imminent. The King's horse was led into the hall. Day was 
dawning ; and the Cavaliers, as they entered the old conventual 
tenement, and saw the sunbeams on its walls, perceived their 
peril. A family of servants named Penderell held various offices 
there, and at Boscobel. William took care of Boscobel, 
George was a servant at White-Ladies; Humphrey was the 
miller to that house ; Richard lived close by, at Hebbal 
Grange. He and William were called into the royal pre- 
sence. Lord Derby then said to them, ' This is the King ; 
have a care of him, and preserve him as thou didst me.' 

Then the attendant courtiers began undressing the King. ' 
They took off his buff-coat, and put on him a ' noggon coarse 



Vitliers in Hidmg, I r 

shirt,' and a green suit and another doublet — Richard Pende- 
rell's woodman's dress. Lord Wilmot cut his sovereign's hair 
with a knife, but Richard Penderell took up his shears and 
finished the work. ' Burn it,' said the king ; but Richard kept 
the sacred locks. Then Charles covered his dark face with 
soot. Could anything have taken away the expression of his 
half-sleepy, half-merry eyes ? 

They departed, and half an hour afterwards Colonel Ashen- 
hurst, with a troop of Roundhead horse, rode up to the White- 
Ladies. The King, meantime, had been conducted by Richard 
Penderell into a coppice-wood, with a bill-hook in his hands for 
defence and disguise. But his followers were overtaken near 
Newport ; and here Buckingham, with Lords Talbot and Levis- 
ton, escaped ; and henceforth, until Charles's wanderings were 
transferred from England to France, George Villiers was sepa- 
rated from the Prince. Accompanied by the Earls of Derby 
and Lauderdale, and by Lord Talbot, he proceeded northwards, 
in hopes of joining General Leslie and the Scotch horse. But 
their hopes were soon dashed : attacked by a body of Round- 
heads, Buckingham and Lord Leviston were compelled to leave 
the high road, to alight from their horses, and to make their way 
to Bloore Park, near Newport, where Villiers found a shelter. 
He was soon, however, necessitated to depart : he put on a 
labourer's dress ; he deposited his George, a gift from Henrietta 
Maria, with a companion, and set oft' for Billstrop, in Notting- 
hamshire, one Matthews, a carpenter, acting as his guide ; at 
Billstrop he was welcomed by Mr. Hawley, a Cavalier ; and 
from that place he went to Brookesby, in Leicestershire, the 
original seat of the Villiers family, and the birthplace of liis 
father. Here he was received by Lady Villiers — the widow, 
probably, of his father's brother, Sir William Villiers, one of 
those contented country squires who not only sought no dis- 
tinction, but scarcely thanked James I. when he made him a 
baronet. Here might the hunted refugee see, on the open bat- 
tlements of the church, the shields on wliich were exhibited 
united quarterings of his father's family with those of his mo- 
ther ; here, listen to old tales about his grandfather, good Sir 
George, who married a serving-woman in his deceased wife's 



12 He Appears as a Mountebank, 

kitchen f and that serving-woman became the leader of fashions 
in the court of James. Here he might ponder on the vicissitudes 
which marked the destiny of the house of Vilhers, and wonder 
what should come next. 

That the spirit of adventure was strong within him, is shown 
by his daring to go up to London, and disguising himself as a 
mountebank. He had a coat made, called a ' Jack Pudding 
Coat :' a little hat was stuck on his head, with a fox's tail in it, 
and cocks' feathers here and there. A wizard's mask one day, 
a daubing of flour another, completed the disguise it was then 
so usual to assume : witness the long traffic held at Exeter 
Change by the Duchess of Tyrconnel, Francis Jennings, in a 
white mask, selling laces, and French gew-gaws, a trader to all 
appearance, but really carrying on political intrigues ; every one 
went to chat with the ^ White Milliner,' as she was called, 
during the reign of William and Mary. The Duke next erected 
a stage at Charing Cross — in the very face of the stern Rum- 
pers, who, with long faces, rode past the sinful man each day 
as they came ambling up from the Parliament House. A band 
of puppet-players and violins set up their shows ; and music 
covers a multitude of incongruities. The ballad was then the 
great vehicle of personal attack, and Villiers's dawning taste 
for poetry was shown in the ditties which he now composed, 
and in which he sometimes assisted vocally. Whilst all the 
other Cavaliers were forced to fly, he thus bearded his enemies 
in their very homes : sometimes he talked to them face to face, 
and kept the sanctimonious citizens in talk, till they found 
themselves sinfully disposed to laugh. But this vagrant life 
had serious evils : it broke down all the restraints which civilised, 
society naturally, and beneficially, imposes. The Duke ol 
Buckingham, Butler, the author of Hudibras, writes, Arises, 
eats, goes to bed by the Julian account, long after all others 
that go by the new style, and keeps the same hours with owls 
and the Antipodes. He is a great observer of the Tartar cus- 

* Sir George Villiers's second wife was Mary, daughter of Ar.tony Beaumont, 
Esq., of Glenfield, (Nichols's' Leicestershire, iii. 193,) who was sonof Wm. Beau- 
mont, Esq., of Cole Orton. She afterwards was married successively to Sir 
Wm. Rayner and Sir Thomas Com.pton, and was created Countess of Bucking- 
ham in i6i8. 



Bicckinghani s Habits, 13 

tonis, and never eats till the great cliam, having dined, makes 
proclamation that all the world may go to dinner. He does 
not dwell in his house, but haunts it like an evil spirit, that 
walks all night, to disturb the family, and never appears by 
day. He lives perpetually benighted, runs out of his life, and 
loses his time as men do their ways in the dark : and as blind 
men are led by their dogs, so he is governed by some mean 
servant or other that relates to his pleasures. He is as incon- 
stant as the moon which he lives under ; and although he does 
nothing but advise with his pillow all day, he is as great a 
stranger to himself as he is to .the rest of the world. His mind 
entertains all things that come and go; but like guests and 
strangers, they are not welcome if they stay long. This lays 
him open to all cheats, quacks, and impostors, who apply to 
every particular humour while it lasts, and afterwards vanish. 
He deforms nature, while he intends to adorn her, like Indians 
that hang jewels in their lips and noses. His ears are perpe- 
tually drilling with a fiddlestick, and endures pleasures with less 
patience than other men do their pains.' 

The more effectually to support his character as a mounte- 
bank, Villiers sold mithridate and galbanum plasters : thou- 
sands of spectators and customers thronged every day to see 
and hear him. Possibly many guessed that beneath all this 
fantastic exterior some ulterior project was concealed; yet he 
remained untouched by the City Guards. Well did Dryden 
describe him : — 

*Tlien all for women, paintincr, rhyminff, drinking, 
Beside ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. 
Blest madman, who could every hour employ 
With something new to \vish or to enjoy.' 

His elder sister, Lady Mary Villiers, had married the Duke 
of Richmond, one of the loyal adherents of Charles I. The 
duke was, therefore, in durance at Windsor, whilst the duchess 
was to be placed under strict surveillance at Whitehall. 

Villiers resolved to see her. Hearing that she was to pass 
into Whitehall on a certain day, he set up liis stage where she 
could not fail to perceive him. He had something imj)ortant 
lo say to her. As she drew near, he cried out to the mob that 



14 Cromwell's Saintly Daughter, 

he would give them a song on the Duchess of Richmond and 
the Duke of Buckingham : nothing could be more acceptable. 
^ The mob/ it is related, ^ stopped the coach and the duchess 
. . . Nay, so outrageous were the mob, that they forced the 
duchess, who was then the handsomest woman in England, to 
sit in the boot of the coach, and to hear him sing all his imper- 
tinent songs. Having left off singing, he told them it was no 
more than reason that he should present the duchess with some 
of the songs. So he alighted from his stage, covered all over 
with papers and ridiculous little pictures. Having come to the 
coach, he took off a black piece of taffeta, which he always 
wore over one of his eyes, when his sister discovered imme- 
diately who he was, yet had so much presence of mind as not 
to give the least sign of mistrust ; nay, she gave him some very 
opprobrious language, but was very eager at snatching the 
papers he threw into her coach. Among them was a packet of 
letters, which she had no sooner got but she went forward, the 
duke, at the head of the mob, attending and hallooing her a 
good way out of the town.' 

A still more daring adventure was contemplated also by this 
young, irresistible duke. Bridget Cromwell, the eldest daughter 
of Oliver, was, at that time, a bride of twenty-six years of age ; 
having married, in 1647, the saintly Henry Ireton, Lord Deputy 
of Ireland. Bridget was the pattern heroine of the ' tinco guid^ 
the quintessence of all propriety ; the impersonation of sanctity ; 
an ultra republican, who scarcely accorded to her father the 
modest title of Protector. She was esteemed by her party a 
^ personage of sublime growth :' ' humbled, not exalted,' accord- 
ing to Mrs. Hutchinson, by her elevation : ^ nevertheless,' says 
that excellent lady, ' as my Lady Ireton was walking in the St. 
James's Park, the Lady Lambert, as proud as her husband,, 
came by where she was, and as the present princess always 
hath precedency of the relict of the dead, so she put by my 
Lady Ireton, who, notwithstanding her piety and humility, was 
a little grieved at the affront.' 

After this anecdote one cannot give much credence to this 
lady's humility : Bridget was, however, a woman of powerful 
intellect, weakened by her extreme, and, to use a now common 




VlM,IKIi-> l\ I)1S<,1 l>K I 



II ui I !!v«? wrTK ins 8ISTEK. 



S.> p. 11 



Villiers and the Rabbi. 1 5 

term, crotchety opinions. Like most esp7'its forts ^ she was easily 
imposed upon. One day this paragon saw a mountebank 
dancing on a stage in the most exquisite style. His fine shape, 
too, caught the attention of one who assumed to be above all 
folly. It is sometimes fatal to one's peace to look out of a 
window; no one knows what sights may rivet or displease. 
Mistress Ireton was sitting at her window unconscious that any 
one with the hated and malignant name of ^Villiers' was before 
her. After some unholy admiration, she sent to speak to the 
mummer. The duke scarcely knew whether to trust himself in the 
power of the bloodthirsty Ireton's bride or not — yet his courage 
— his love of sport — prevailed. He visited her that evening : no 
longer, however, in his jack-pudding coat, but in a rich suit, 
disguised with a cloak over it. He wore still a plaster over one 
eye, and was much disposed to take it off, but prudence for- 
bade ; and thus he stood in the presence of the prim and 
saintly Bridget Ireton. The particulars of the interview rest on 
his statement, and they must not, therefore, be accepted im- 
plicitly. Mistress Ireton is said to have made advances to the 
handsome incognito. What a triumph to a man like Villiers, 
to have intrigued with my Lord Protector's sanctified daughter ! 
But she inspired him with disgust. He saw in her the pre- 
sumption and hypocrisy of her father ; he hated her as Crom- 
well's daughter and Ilreton's wife. He told her, therefore, that 
he was a Jew, and could not by his laws become the paramour 
of a Christian woman. The saintly Bridget stood amazed ; she 
had imprudently let him into some of the most important 
secrets of her party. A Jew ! It was dreadful ! But how 
could a person of that persuasion be so strict, so strait-laced ? 
She probably entertained all the horror of Jews which the Puri- 
tanical party cherished as a virtue ; forgetting the lessons ot 
toleration and liberality inculcated by Holy Writ. Slie sent, 
however, for a certain Jewish Rabbi to converse with the 
stranger. What was the Duke of Buckingham's suri)risc, on 
visiting her one evening, to see the learned doc^tor armed at all 
points with the Talmud, and thirsting for dispute, by the side 
of the saintly Bridget. He could noways meet such a body of 
controversy; but tliought it best forthwith to set off for the 



1 6 The Bticki7tgha7n Pictttres a7id Estate. 

Downs. Before he departed he wrote, however, to Mistress 
Ireton, on the plea that she might wish to know to what tribe of 
Jews he belonged. So he sent her a note written with all his 
native wit and point.'" 

Buckingham now experienced all the miseries that a man of 
expensive pleasures with a sequestrated estate is likely to 
endure. One friend remained to watch over his interests in 
England. This was John Traylman, a servant of his late 
father's, who was left to guard the collection of pictures made 
by the late duke, and deposited- in York House. That collec- 
tion was, in the opftiion of competent judges, the third in point 
of value in England, being only inferior to those of Charles I. 
and the Earl of Arundel. 

It had been bought, with immense expense, partly by the 
duke's agents in Italy, the Mantua Gallery supplying a great 
portion — ^partly in France — partly in Flanders ; and to Flanders 
a great portion was destined now to return. Secretly and labo- 
riously did old Traylman pack up and send off these treasures 
to Antwerp, where now the gay youth whom the aged domestic 
had known from a child was in want and exile. The pictures 
were eagerly bought by a foreign collector named Duart. The 
proceeds gave poor Villiers bread; but the noble works of 
Titian and Leonardo da Vinci, and others, were lost for ever to 
England. 

It must have been very irritating to Villiers to know that 
whilst he just existed abroad, the great estates enjoyed by his 
father were being subjected to pillage by Cromwell's soldiers, 
or sold for pitiful sums by the Commissioners appointed by 
the Parliament to break up and annihilate many of the old pro- 
perties in England. Burleigh-on-the-Hill, the stately seat on 
which the first duke had lavished thousands, had been taken 
by the Roundheads. It was so large, and presented so long a 
line of buildings, that the Parliamentarians could not hold it 
^vithout leaving in it a great garrison and stores of ammunition. 
It was therefore burnt, and the stables alone occupied; and 
those even were formed into a house of unusual size. York 

* This incident is taken from Madame Dunois' Memoirs, part i. p. 86. 



York House. 17 

House was doubtless marked out for the next destructive 
decreei^i There was something in the very history of this house 
v/hich might be supposed to excite the wrath of the Round- 
heads. Queen Mary (whom we must not, after Miss Strick- 
land's admirable life of her, call Bloody Queen Mary, but who 
will always be best known by that unpleasant title) had be- 
stowed York House on the See of York, as a compensation for 
York House, at Whitehall, which Henry VIII. had taken from 
Wolsey. It had afterwards come into possession of the Keepers 
of the Great Seal. Lord Bacon was born in York House, his 
father having lived there ; and the 

' Greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind, ' 

built here an aviary which cost ;^3oo. When the Duke of 
Lennox wished to buy York House, Bacon thus wrote to 
him : — ' For this you will pardon me : York House is the house 
where my father died, and where I first breathed ; and there 
will I yield my last breath, if it so please God and the King.' 
It did not, however, please the King that he should ; the house 
was borrowed only by the first Duke of Buckingham from the 
Archbishop of York, and then exchanged for another seat, on 
the plea that the duke would want it for the reception of foreign 
potentates, and for entertainments given to royalty. 

The duke pulled it down : and the house, which was 
erected as a temporary structure, was so superb that even 
Pepys, twenty years after it had been left to bats and cob- 
webs, speaks of it in raptures, as of a place in which the great 
duke's soul was seen in every chamber. On the walls were 
shields on which the arms of Manners and of Villiers — pea- 
cocks and lions — were quartered. York House was never, 
however, finished ; but as the lover of old haunts enters 
Buckingham Street in the Strand, he will perceive an ancient 
water-gate, beautifully proportioned, built by Inigo Jones — 
smoky, isolated, impaired — but still speaking volumes of re- 
membrance of the glories of the assassinated duke, who bad 
I)urposed to build the whole house in that style. 

' Yorschaux; as he called it— York House— the I'rcnc:ii 
ambassador had written word to his friends at home, ' is the 



1 8 Villiers Returns to Englafid, 

most richly fitted up of any that I saw.' The galleries and 
state rooms were graced by the display of the Roman marbles^ 
both busts and statues, which the first duke had bought from 
Rubens ; whilst in the gardens the Cain and Abel of John of 
Bologna, given by Philip IV. of Spain to King Charles, ana 
by him bestowed on the elder George Villiers, made that fair 
pleasaunce famous. It was doomed — as were what were called 
the ' superstitious ' pictures in the house — to destruction : 
henceforth all was in decay and neglect. ^ I went to see York 
House and gardens,' Evelyn writes in 1655, ^belonging to 
the former greate Buckingham, but now much ruined through 
neglect.' 

Traylman, doubtless, kept George Villiers the younger in 
full possession of all that was to happen to that deserted tene« 
ment in which the old man mourned for the departed, and 
thought of the absent. 

The intelligence which he had soon to communicate was 
all-important. York House was to be occupied again; and 
Cromwell and his coadjutors had bestowed it on Fairfax. 
The blow was perhaps softened by the reflection that Fairfax 
was a man of generous temper; and that he had an only 
daughter, Mary Fairfax, young, and an heiress. Though the 
daughter of a Puritan, a sort of interest was attached, even by 
Cavaliers, to Mary Fairfax, from her having, at five years of 
age, followed her father through the civil wars on horseback^ 
seated before a maid-servant; and having, on her journey, 
frequently fainted, she was so ill as to have been left in a 
house by the roadside, her father never expecting to see her 
again. 

In reference to this young girl, then about eighteen years 
of age, Buckingham now formed a plan. He resolved to 
return to England disguised, to offer his hand to Mary Fair- 
fax, and so recover his property through the influence of 
Fairfax. He was confident of his own attractions ; and, in- 
deed, from every account, he appears to have been one of 
those reckless, handsome, speculative characters that often take 
the fancy of better men than themselves. ^He had,' says 
Burnet, ^no sort of literature, only he was drawn into chy- 



Poor Mary Fairfax! 19 

mistiy ; and for some years he thought he was very near the 
finding of the philosophers stone, which had the effect that 
attends on all such men as he was, when they are drawn in, 
to lay out for it. He had no principles of religion, virtue, or 
friendship ; pleasure, frolic, or extravagant diversion, was all he 
laid to heart. He was true to nothing ; for he was not true to 
himself. He had no steadiness nor conduct ; he could keep 
no secret, nor execute any design without spoiling it ; he could 
never fix his thoughts, nor govern his estate, though then the 
greatest in England. He was bred about the king, and for 
many years he had a great ascendant over him ; but he spoke 
of him to all persons with that contempt, that at last he drew 
a lasting disgrace upon himself And he at length ruined both 
body and mind, fortune and reputation, equally.' 

This was a sad prospect for poor Mary Fairfax, but certainly 
if in their choice 

' Weak women go astray, 



Their stars are more in fault than they,' 

and she was less to blame in her choice than her father, who 
ought to have advised her against the marriage. Where and 
how they met is not known. Mary was not attractive in 
person : she was in her youth little, brown, and thin, but 
became a ' short fat body,' as De Grammont tells us, in her 
early married life ; in the later period of her existence she was 
described by the Vicomtesse de Longueville as a * little round 
crumpled woman, very fond of finer)- ;' and she adds that, on 
visiting the duchess one day, she found her, though in mourn- 
ing, in a kind of loose robe over her, all edged and laced Avith 
gold. So much for a Puritan's daughter ! 

To this insipid personage the duke presented himself She 
soon liked him, and in spite of his outrageous infidelities, con- 
tinued to like him after their marriage. 

He carried his point : Mary Fairfiix became his wife on the 
6th of September, 1675, and, by the influence of Fairfax", his 
estate, or, at all events, a portion of the revenues, about 
;^4,ooo a year, it is said, were restored to him. Nevertheless, 
it is mortifying to find that in 1672, he sold York House, in 
which his fitlur hnd takLii such pride, for ;£\o,ooo. The 



20 Villiers in the Tower, 

house was pulled down ; streets were erected on the gardens : 
George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street. Buckingham Street, 
Off Alley recall the name of the ill-starred George, first duke, 
and of his needy, profligate son ; but the only trace of the real 
greatness of the family importance thus swept away is in the 
motto inscribed on the point of old Inigo's water-gate, towards 
the street : 'Fidei coticula crux.'* It is sad for all good royalists 
to reflect that it was not the rabid Roundhead, but a degenerate 
Cavalier, who sold and thus destroyed York House. 

The marriage with Mary Fairfax, though one of interest 
solely, was not a mesalliance \ her father was connected by 
the female side with the Earls of Rutland ; he was also a 
man of a generous spirit, as he had shown, in handing over to 
the Countess of Derby the rents of the Isle of Man, which 
had been granted to him by the Parliament. In a similar 
spirit he was not sorry to restore York House to the Duke of 
Buckingham. 

Cromwell, however, was highly exasperated by the nuptials 
between Mary Fairfax and Villiers, which took place at Nun- 
Appleton, near York, one of Fairfax's estates. The Protector 
had, it is said, intended Villiers for one of his own daughters. 
Upon what plea he acted it is not stated : he committed 
Villiers to the Tower, where he remained until the death of 
Oliver, and the accession of Richard Cromwell. 

In vain did Fairfax solicit his release : Cromwell refused 
it, and Villiers remained in durance until the abdication of 
Richard Cromwell, when he was set at liberty, but not without 
the following conditions, dated February 21st, 1658 — 9 :— 

* The humble petition of George Duke of Buckingham was 
this day read. Resolved that George Duke of Buckingham, 
now prisoner at Windsor Castle, upon his engagement upon 
his honour at the bar of this House, and upon the engage- 
ment of Lord Fairfax in ;^2 0,000 that the said duke shall 
peaceably demain himself for the future, and shall not join 
with, or abet, or have any correspondence with, any of the 
enemies of the Lord Protector, and of this Commonwealth, in 
any of the parts beyond the sea, or within this Common- 
wealth, shall be discharged of his imprisonment and restraint ; 



A braham Cozvley^ the Poet. 2 1 

and that the Governor of Windsor Castle be required to 
bring the Duke of Buckingham to the bar of this House on 
Wednesday next, to engage his honour accordingly. Ordered, 
that the security of ;^20,ooo to be given by the Lord Fairfax, 
on the behalf of the Duke of Buckingham, be taken in the 
name of His Highness the Lord Protector. ' 

During his incarceration at Windsor, Buckingham had a 
companion, of whom many a better man might have been 
envious : this was Abraham Cowley, an old college friend of 
the duke's. Cowley was the son of a grocer, and owed his 
entrance into academic life to having been a King's Scholar 
at Westminster. One day he happened to take up from his 
mother's parlour window a copy of Spenser's ' Faerie Queene.' 
He eagerly perused the delightful volume, though he was then 
only twelve years old : and this impulse being given to his 
mind, became at fifteen a reciter of verses. His ' Poetical 
Blossoms,' published whilst he was still at school, gave, how- 
ever, no foretaste of his future eminence. He proceeded to 
Trinity College, Cambridge, where his friendship with Villiers 
was formed ; and where, perhaps, from that circumstance, 
Cowley's predilections for the cause of the Stuarts was ripened 
into loyalty. 

No two characters could be more dissimilar than those of 
Abraham Cowley and George Villiers. Cowley was quiet, 
modest, sober, of a thoughtful, philosophical turn, and of an 
affectionate nature ; neither boasting of his own merits nor 
depreciating others. He was the friend of Lucius Cary, I^ord 
Falkland ; and yet he loved, though he must have condemned, 
George Villiers. It is not unlikely that, whilst Cowley im- 
parted his love of poetry to Villiers, Villiers may have inspired 
the pensive and blameless poet with a love of that display 
of wit then in vogue, and heightened that sense of humour 
which speaks forth in some of Cowley's productions. Few 
authors suggest so many new thoughts, really his own, as 
Cowley. * His works,' it has been said, * arc a flower-garden 
nm to weeds, but the flowers are numerous and brilliant, and 
a search after them will repay the pains of a collector who is 
not too indolent or fastidious.' 



22 The Greatest Ornament of Whitehall. 

As Cowley and his friend passed the weary hours in 
durance, many an old tale could the poet tell the peer of 
stirring times ; for Cowley had accompanied Charles I. in 
many a perilous journey, and had protected Queen Henrietta 
Maria in her escape to France : through Cowley had the cor- 
respondence of the royal pair, when separated, been carried 
on. The poet had before suffered imprisonment for his loyalty; 
and, to disguise his actual occupation, had obtained the 
degree of Doctor of Medicine, and assumed the character of a 
physician, on the strength of knowing the virtues of a few plants. 

Many a laugh, doubtless, had Buckingham at the expense of 
Dr. Cowley : however, in later days, the duke proved a true 
friend to the poet, in helping to procure for him the lease of 
a farm at Chertsey from the queen, and here Cowley, rich 
upon ;^3oo a year, ended his days. 

For some time after Buckingham's release, he lived quietly 
and respectably at Nun-Appleton, with General Fairfax and 
the vapid Mary. But the Restoration — the first dawnings of 
which have been referred to in the commencement of this 
biography — ruined him, body and mind. 

He was made a Lord of the Bedchamber, a Member of 
the Privy Council, and afterwards Master of the Horse,"' and 
Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire. He lived in great magnificence 
at Wallingford House, a tenement next to York House, intended 
to be the habitable and useful appendage to that palace. 

He was henceforth, until he proved treacherous to his sove- 
reign, the brightest ornament of Whitehall. Beauty of person 
was hereditary : his father was styled the ' handsomest-bodied 
man in England,' and George Villiers the younger equalled 
George Villiers the elder in all personal accomplishments. 
When he entered the Presence-Chamber all eyes followed 
him; every movement was graceful and stately. Sir John 
Reresby pronounced him ' to be the finest gentleman he ever 
saw.' * He was born,' Madame Dunois declared, ' for gallantry 
and magnificence.' His wit was faultless, but his manners 
engaging ; yet his sahies often descended into buffoonery, and 

* The duke became Master of the Horse in 1688 : he paid ;£"2o,ooo to the 
Duke of Albemarle for the post. 



Buckingham s Wit and B canty, 23 

he spared no one in his merry moods. One evening a play 
of Dryden's was represented. An actress had to spout forth 
this hne — 

' My wound is great because it is so small !' 

She gave it out with pathos, paused, and was theatrically dis- 
tressed. Buckingham was seated in one of the boxes. He 
rose, all eyes were fixed upon a face well known in all gay 
assemblies, in a tone of burlesque he answered — 

' Then 'twould be greater were it none at all.' 

Instantly the audience laughed at the Duke's tone of ridicule, 
and the poor woman was hissed off the stage. 

The king himself did not escape Buckingham's shafts ; 
whilst Lord Chancellor Clarendon fell a victim to his ridicule : 
nothing could withstand it. There, not in that iniquitous gal- 
lery at Whitehall, but in the king's privy chambers, Villiers 
might be seen, in all the radiance of his matured beauty. His 
face was long and oval, with sleepy, yet glistening eyes, over 
which large arched eyebrows seemed to contract a brow on 
which the curls of a massive wig (which fell almost to his 
shoulders) hung low. His nose was long, well formed, and 
flexible ; his lips thin and compressed, and defined, as the cus- 
tom was, by two very short, fine, black patches of hair, looking 
more like strips of sticking-plaster than a moustache. As he 
made his reverence, his rich robes fell over a faultless form. 
He was a beau to the very fold of the cambric band round his 
throat; with long ends of the richest, closest point that was 
ever rummaged out from a foreign nunnery to be placed on the 
person of this sacrilegious sinner. 

Behold, now, how he changes. Villiers is Villiers no longer. 
He is Clarendon, walking solemnly to the Court of the Star 
Chamber : a pair of bellows is hanging before him for the 
purse ; Colonel Titus is walking with a fire shovel on his 
shoulder, to represent a mace ; the king, himself a capital 
mimic, is splitting his sides with laughter ; the courtiers are 
fairly in a roar. Then how he was wont to divert tlic king 
with his descriptions ! ^ Ipswich, for instance,' he said, * was 
a town without inhabitants — a river it liad witl.out water — 



24 Flesknoes Opinion of Him. 

streets without names; and it was a place where asses wore 
boots :' alluding to the asses, when employed in rolling Lord 
Hereford's bowling-green, having boots on their feet to prevent 
their injuring the turf. 

Flecknoe, the poet, describes the duke at this period, in. 
^Euterpe Revived' — 

The gallant'st person, and the noblest minde, 

In all the world his prince could ever finde, 

Or to participate his private cares, 

Or bear the public v^eight- of his affairs, 

Like well-built arches, stronger with their weight. 

And well-built minds, the steadier with their height ; 

Such was the composition and frame 

O' the noble and the gallant Buckingham.' 

The praise, however, even in the duke's best days, was over- 
charged. Villiers was no ^ well-built arch,' nor could Charles 
trust to the fidelity of one so versatile for an hour. Besides, 
the moral character of Villiers must have prevented him, even 
in those days, from bearing ' the public weight of affairs.' 

A scandalous intrigue soon proved the unsoundness of Fleck- 
noe's tribute. Amongst the most licentious beauties of the court 
was Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, the daughter of Robert 
Brudenel, Earl of Cardigan, and the wife of Francis, Earl of 
Shrewsbury : amongst many shameless women she was the 
most shameless, and her face seems to have well expressed 
her mind. In the round, fair visage, with its languishing eyes, 
and full, pouting mouth, there is something voluptuous and 
bold. The forehead is broad, but low; and the wavy hair, 
with its tendril curls, comes down almost to the fine arched 
eyebrows, and then, falling into masses, sets off white shoulders 
which seem to designate an inelegant amount of embonpoint. 
There is nothing elevated in the whole countenance, as Lely 
has painted her, and her history is a disgrace to her age and 
time. 

She had numerous lovers (not in the refined sense of the 
word), and, at last, took up with Thomas Killigrew. He had 
been, like Villiers, a royalist : first a page to Charles I., next 
a companion of Charles II., in exile. He married the fair 
Cecilia Croft ; yet his morals were so vicious that even in the 
Court of Venice to which he was accredited, in order to borrow 



His Dicel zvith the Earl of SJiixwsbiiry. 25 

money from the merchants of that city, he was too profligate 
to remain. He came back with Charles II., and was Master 
of the Revels, or King's Jester, as the court considered him, 
though without any regular appointment, during his life : the 
butt, at once, and the satirist of Whitehall. 

It was Killigrew's wit and descriptive powers which, when 
heightened by wine, were inconceivably great, that induced 
Villiers to select Lady Shrewsbury for the object of his admi- 
ration. When Killigrew perceived that he was supplanted by 
Villiers, he became frantic with rage, and poured out the bit- 
terest invectives against the countess. The result was that, one 
night, returning from the Duke of York's apartments at St. 
James's, three passes with a sword were made at him through 
his chair, and one of them pierced his arm. This, and other 
occurrences, at last aroused the attention of Lord Shrewsbury, 
who had hitherto never doubted his wife : he challenged the 
Duke of Buckingham ; and his infamous wife, it is said, held 
her paramour's horse, disguised as a page. Lord Shrewsbury 
was killed,'^ and the scandalous intimacy went on as before. 
No one but the queen, no one but the Duchess of Buckingham, 
appeared shocked at this tragedy, and no one minded their 
remarks, or joined in their indignation : all moral sense was 
suspended, or wholly stifled ; and Villiers gloried in his de- 
pravity, more witty, more amusing, more fashionable than ever ; 
and yet he seems, by the best-known and most extolled of his 
poems, to have had some conception of what a real and worthy 
attachment might be. 

The following verses arc to his ^ Mistress' : — 

' What a dull fool was I 

To think so gross a lie, 
As that I ever was in love before ! 
I have, perhaps, known one or two, 

With whom I was content to be 

At that which they call keeping company. 
But after all that tlu;y could do, 

I still could be with more. 

'Jheir absence never made me shed a tear ; 

And I can truly swear. 
That, till my eyes first gazed on you, 

I ne'er beheld the thing I could adore. 

♦ The duel with the Earl of Shrewsbury took place 17th January, 1667-8. 



26 Villiers as a Poet 

' A world of things must curiously be sought : 
A world of things must be together brought 

To make up charms which have the power to move, 

Through a discerning eye, true love ; 

That is a master-piece above 

What only looks and shape can do ; 
There must be wit and judgment too, 

Greatness of thought, and worth, which draw, 

From the whole world, respect and awe. 

^ She that would raise a noble love must find 
Ways to beget a passion for her mind ; 
She must be that which she to be would seem, 
For all true love is grounded on esteem : 
Plainness and truth gain more a generous heart 
Than all the crooked subtleties of art. 
She must be — what said I ? — she must be yozi : 
None but yourself that miracle can do. 
At least, I'm sure, thus much I plainly see, 
None but yourself e'er did it upon me. 
'Tis you alone that can my heart subdue. 
To you alone it always shall be true.' 

The next lines are also remarkable for the delicacy and 
'happy turn of the expressions— 

• Though Phillis, from prevailing charms, 
Have forc'd my Delia from my arms, 
Think not your conquest to maintain 
By rigour or unjust disdain. 
In vain, fair nymph, in vain you strive, 
For Love doth seldom Hope survive. 
My heart may languish, for a time, 
As all beauties in their prime 
Have justified such cruelty. 
By the same fate that conquered me. 
When age shall come, at whose command 
Those troops of beauty must disband — 
A rival's strength once took away. 
What slave's so dull as to obey ? 
But if you'll learn a noble way 
To keep his empire from decay. 
And there for ever fix your throne, 
Be kind, but kind to me alone. ' 

Like his father, who ruined himself by building, Villiers had 
a monomania for bricks and mortar, yet he found time to 
write ' The Rehearsal,' a play on which Mr. Reed in his 
^ Dramatic Biography' makes the following observation : ^ It 
is so perfect a masterpiece in its way, and so truly original, that 
notwithstanding its prodigious success, even the task of imita.- 
tion, which most kinds of excellence have invited inferior ge- 
niuses to undertake, has appeared as too arduous to be 
.attempted with regard to this, which through a whole century 



A fearful Censure. 27 

staPxds alone, notwithstanding that the very plays it was written 
expressly to ridicule are forgotten, and the taste it was meant 
to expose totally exploded.' 

The reverses of fortune which brought George Villiers to 
abject misery were therefore, in a very great measure, due to 
his own misconduct, his depravity, his waste of life, his per- 
version of noble mental powers : yet in many respects he was 
in advance of his age. He advocated, in the House of Lords, 
toleration to Dissenters. He ^vrote a ' Short Discourse on the 
Reasonableness of Men's having a Religion, or Worship of 
God ;' yet, such was his inconsistency, that in spite of these 
works, and of one styled a ^ Demonstration of the Deity,' writ- 
ten a short tim^e before his death, he assisted Lord Rochester 
in his atheistic poem upon ^ Nothing.' 

Butler, the author of Hudibras, too truly said of Villiers 
^ that he had studied the whole body of vicef a most fearful cen- 
sure — a most significant description of a bad man. ' His parts,* 
he adds, ^ are disproportionate to the whole, and like a monster, 
he has more of some, and less of others, than he should have. 
He has pulled down all that nature raised in him, and built 
himself up again after a model of his own. He has dammed 
up all those lights that nature made into the noblest prospects 
of the world, and opened other little blind loopholes backward 
■ by turning day into night, and night into day.' 

The satiety and consequent misery produced by this terrible 
life are ably described by Butler. And it was perhaps partly 
this wearied, Avorn-out spirit that caused Villiers to rush madly 
into politics for excitement. In 1666 he asked for the office 
of Lord President of the North ; it was refused : he became 
disaffected, raised mutinies, and, at last, excited the indigna- 
tion of his too-indulgent sovereign. Charles dismissed him 
from his office, after keeping him for some time in confinement. 
After this epoch little is heard of Buckingham but what is dis- 
graceful. He was again restored to Whiteliall, and, according 
to Pepys, even closeted with Charles, whilst the Duke of York 
was excluded. A certain acquaintance of the duke's rcmon- 
trated with him upon the course which Charles now took in 
Parliament. ' How often have you said to me,' this person ro- 



28 Villierss Influence in Parlia7nent. 

marked, " that the king was a weak man, unable to govern, but 
to be governed, and that you could command him as you liked ? 
Why do you suffer him to do these things?' 

' Why,' answered the duke, ' I do suffer him to do these things, 
that I may hereafter the better command him.' A reply which 
betrays the most depraved principle of action, whether towards 
a sovereign or a friend, that can be expressed. His influence 
was for some time supreme, yet he because the leader of the 
opposition, and invited to his table the discontented peers, to 
whom he satirized the court, and condemned the king's want of 
attention to business. Whilst the theatre was ringing with 
laughter at the inimitable character of Bayes in the ^ Rehearsal,' 
the House of Lords was listening with profound attention to 
the eloquence that entranced their faculties, making wrong seem 
right, for Buckingham was ever heard with attention. 

Taking into account his mode of existence, ' which,' says 
Clarendon, * was a life by night more than by day, in all the 
liberties that nature could desire and wit invent,' it was aston- 
ishing how extensive an influence he had in both Houses of 
Pailiament. ' His rank and condescension, the pleasantness of 
his humours and conversation, and the extravagance and keen- 
ness of his wit, unrestrained by modesty or religion, caused 
persons of all opinions and dispositions to be fond of his com- 
pany, and to imagine that these levities and vanities would wear 
off with age, and that there would be enough of good left to 
make him useful to his country, for which he pretended a won- 
derful affection.' 

But this brilliant career was soon checked. The varnish over 
the hollow character of this extraordinary man was eventually 
rubbed off. We find the first hint of that famous coalition 
styled the Cabal in Pepys's Diary, and henceforth the duke must 
be regarded as a ruined man. 

' He' (Sir H. Cholmly) ' tells me that the Duke of Bucking- 
ham his crimes, as far as he knows, are his being of a cabal 
with some discontented persons of the late House of Commons, 
and opposing the desires of the king in all his matters in that 
House ; and endeavouring to become popular, and advising 
how the Commons' House should proceed, and how he would 



A Scene m the Lords. 29 

order the House of Lords. And he hath been endeavouring 
to have the king's nativity calculated ; which was done, and 
the fellow now in the Tower about it. . . . This silly lord hath 
provoked, by his ill carriage, the Duke of York, my Lord 
Chancellor, and all the great persons, and therefore most likely 
will die.' 

One day, in the House of Lords, during a conference be- 
tween the two Houses, Buckingham leaned rudely over the 
shoulder of Henry Pierrepont Marquis of Dorchester. Lord 
Dorchester merely removed his elbow. Then the duke asked 
him if he was uneasy. ^ Yes,' the marquis replied, adding, ' the 
duke dared not do this if he were anywhere else.' Buckingham 
retorted, ' Yes, he would : and he was a better man than my 
lord marquis :' on which Dorchester told him that he lied. On 
this Buckingham struck off Dorchester's hat, seized him by the 
periwig, pulled it aside, and held him. The Lord Chamberlain 
and others interposed and sent them both to the Tower. Ne- 
vertheless, not a month afterwards, Pepys speaks of seeing the 
duke's play of ^ The Chances' acted at Whitehall. ^ A good 
play,' he condescends to say, ' I find it, and the actors most 
good in it ; and pretty to hear Knipp sing in the play very pro- 
perly *^ All night I weepe," and sung it admirably. The whole 
play pleases me well : and most of all, the sight of many fine 
ladies, amongst others, my Lady Casdemaine and Mrs. Mid- 
dleton,' 

The whole management of public affairs was, at this period, 
intrusted to five persons, and hence the famous combination, 
the united letters of which formed the word * Cabal :' — Clifford, 
Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. Their repre- 
hensible schemes, their desperate characters, rendered them the 
opprobrium of their age, and the objects of censure to all pos- 
terity. Whilst matters were in this state a daring outrage, wliicli 
spoke fearfully of the lawless state of the times, was ascribed, 
though wrongly, to ]>uckingham. 'J1ie Duke of Ormond, ibc 
object of his inveterate hatred, was at that time l>ord Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland. Colonel I^lood, — a disaffected disbanded 
officer of the Commonwealth, who had been attainted for a 
-conspiracy in Ireland, but had escaped punishmcn' -^mr to 



30 The Duke of Onnond in Danger, 

England, and acted as a spy for the ^ Cabal/ who did not hesi- 
tate to countenance this daring scoundrel. 

His first exploit was to attack the Duke of Ormond's coach 
one night in St. James's Street : to secure his person, bind him, 
put him on horseback after one of his accomplices', and carry 
him to Tyburn, where he meant to hang his grace. On their 
way, however, Ormond, by a violent effort, threw himself on 
the ground ; a scuffle ensued : the duke's servants came up, and 
after receiving the fire of Blood's pistols, the duke escaped. 
Lord Ossory, the Duke of Ormond's son, on going afterward 
to court, met Buckingham, and addressed him in these words : — 

' My lord, I know well that you are at the bottom of this 
late attempt on my father ; but I give you warning, if he by 
any means come to a violent end, I shall not be at a loss to 
know the author. I shall consider you as an assassin, and shall 
treat you as such ; and wherever I meet you I shall pistol you, 
though you stood behind the king's chair; and I tell it you in 
his majesty's presence, that you may be sure I shall not fail of 
performance.' 

Blood's next feat was to carry off from the Tower the crown 
jewels. He was overtaken and arrested : and was then asked 
to name his accomplices. ^ No,' he replied, ' the fear of danger 
shall never tempt me to deny guilt or to betray a friend. 
Charles II., with undignified curiosity, wished to see the culprit. 
On inquiring of Blood how he dared to make so bold an at- 
tempt on the crown, the bravo answered, ' My father lost a good 
estate fighting for the crown, and I considered it no harm to 
recover it by the crown.' He then told his majesty how he had 
resolved to assassinate him : how he had stood among the reeds 
in Battersea-fields with this design ; how then, a sudden awe 
had come over him : and Charles was weak enough to admire 
Blood's fearless bearing and to pardon his attempt. Well might 
the Earl of Rochester write of Charles — 

' Here lies my sovereign lord the king, 

Whose word no man relies on ; 
Who never said a foolish thing, 
And never did a wise one. ' 

Notwithstanding Blood's outrages — the slightest penalty for 



Wallirigford House y and Ham House. 3 1 

which in our days would have been penal servitude for life — 
Evelyn met him, not long afterwards, at Lord Clifford's, at 
dinner, when De Gramm.ont and other French noblemen were 
entertained. * The man,' says Evelyn, ' had not only a daring, 
but a villanous, unmerciful look, a false countenance ; but very 
well-spoken, and dangerously insinuating.' 

Early in 1662, the Duke of Buckingham had been engaged 
in practices against the court : he had disguised deep designs 
by affecting the mere man of pleasure. Never was there such 
splendour as at Wallingford House — such wit and gallantry ; 
such perfect good breeding ; such apparently openhanded hos- 
pitality. At those splendid banquets, John Wilmot, Earl of 
Rochester, ^ a man whom the Muses were fond to inspire, but 
ashamed to avow,' showed his ' beautiful face,' as it was called ; 
and chimed in with that wit for which the age was famous. 
The frequenters at Wallingford House gloried in their indeli- 
cacy. * One is amazed,' Elorace Walpole observes, ' at hearing 
the age of Charles 11. called polite. The Puritans have af- 
fected to call everything by a Scripture' name ; the new comers 
affected to call everything by its right name ; 

' As if preposterously they would confess 
A forced hypocrisy in wickedness.' 

Walpole compares the age of Charles II. to that of Aristo- 
phanes — Svhich called its own grossness polite.' How bitterly 
he decries the stale poems of the time as ^a heap of senseless- 
ribaldry ;' how truly he shows that licentiousness weakens as 
well as depraves the judgment. *When Satyrs are brought to 
court,' he observes, * no wonder the Graces would not trust 
themselves there.' 

The Cabal is said, however, to have been concocted, not at 
Wallingford House, but at Ham House, near Kingston-on- 
Thames. 

In this stately old manor-house, the abode of the Tollemache 
family, the memory of Charles II. and of his court seems to 
linger still. Ham House was intended for the residence of 
Henry, Prince of Wales, and was built in 1610. It stands near 
the river Thames ; and is flanked by noble avenues of elm and 
of chestnut trees, down which one may almost, as it were, hear 



32 ' Madame Ellen' 

the king's talk with his courtiers ; see Arlington approach with 
the well-known patch across his nose ; or spy out the lovely, 
■childish Miss Stuart and her future husband, the Duke of 
Richmond, slipping behind into the garden, lest the jealous 
mortified king should catch a sight of the ^ conscious lovers.' 

This stately structure was given by Charles II., in 1672, to 
the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale : she, the supposed mis- 
tress of Cromwell ; he, the cruel, hateful Lauderdale of the 
Cabal. This detestable couple, however, furnished with massive 
grandeur the apartments of Ham House. They had the ceil- 
ings painted by Verrio ; the furniture was rich, and even now 
the bellows and brushes in some of the rooms are of silver fili- 
gree. One room is furnished with yellow damask, still rich, 
though faded ; the very seats on which Charles, looking around 
him, saw Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley (the infamous 
Shaftesbury), and Lauderdale — and knew not, good easy man, 
that he was looking on a band of traitors — are still there. 
Nay, he even sat to Sir Peter Lely for a portrait for this very 
place — in which, schemes for the ruin of the kingdom were 
concocted. All, probably, was smooth and pleasing to the 
monarch as he ranged down the fine gallery, ninety-two feet 
long ; or sat at dinner amid his foes in that hall, surrounded 
with an open balustrade ; or disported himself on the river's 
green brink. Nay, one may even fancy Nell Gwynn taking a 
day's pleasure in this then lone and ever sweet locality. We 
hear her swearing, as she was wont to do, perchance at the dim 
looking-glasses, her own house in Pall Mall, given her by the 
king, having been filled up, for the comedian, entirely, ceiling 
and all, with looking-glass. How bold and pretty she looked 
in her undress ! Even Pepys — no very sound moralist, though 
a vast hypocrite — tells us : Nelly, ^all unready' was ^ very pretty, 
prettier far than he thought.' But to see how she was ' painted,' 
would, he thought, * make a man mad.' 

' Madame Ellen,' as after her elevation, as it was termed, she 
was called, might, since she held long a great sway over 
Charles's fancy, be suffered to scamper about Ham House — ■ 
where her merry laugh perhaps scandalised the now Saintly 
Duchess of Lauderdale, — ^just to impose on the world ; for Nell 



The Cabal. 33 

was regarded as the Protestant champion of the court, in oppo- 
sition to her French rival, the Duchess of Portsmouth. 

Let us suppose that she has been at Ham House, and is gone 
off to Pall Mall again, where she can see her painted face in 
every turn. The king has departed, and Killigrew, who, at all 
events, is loyal, and the true-hearted Duke of Richmond, all 
are away to London. In yon sanctimonious-looking closet, 
next to the duchess's bed-chamber, with her psalter and her 
prayer-book on her desk, which is fixed to her great chair, and 
that very cane which still hangs there serving as her support 
when she comes forth from that closet, murmur and wrangle the 
component parts of that which was never mentioned without 
fear — the Cabal. The conspirators dare not trust themselves 
in the gallery : there is tapestry there, and we all know what 
coverts there are for eaves-droppers and spiders in tapestried 
walls : then the great Cardinal spiders do so click there, are so 
like the death-watch, that Villiers, who is inveterately supersti- 
tious, will not abide there. The hall, with its enclosing galleries, 
and the buttery near, are manifestly unsafe. So they heard, 
nay crouch, mutter, and concoct that fearful treachery which, 
as far as their country is concerned^ has been a thing apart iu 
our annals, in ^ my Lady's' closet. Englishmen are turbulent, 
ambitious, unscrupulous ; but the craft of Maitland, Duke ot 
Lauderdale — the subtlety of Ashley, seem hardly conceivable 
either in a Scot or Southron. 

These meetings had their natural consequence. One leaves 
Lauderdale, Arlington, Ashley, and Clifford, to their fate. But 
the career of Villiers inspires more interest. He seemed born 
for better things. Like many men of genius, he was so credu- 
lous that the faith he pinned on one Heydon, an astrologer, 
at this time, perhaps buoyed him up with false hopes. Be it 
as it may, his plots now tended to open insurrection. In 1666, 
a proclamation had been issued for his apprehension — he hav- 
ing then absconded. On this occasion he was saved by the 
act of one whom he had injured grossly — his wife. She ma- 
naged to outride the serjeant-at-arms, and to warn him of his 
danger. She had borne his infidelities, after the Hishion of the 
day, as a matter of course : jealousy was then an inii:)crtincncc 

3 



34 Villiers again i7i the Tower, 

— constancy, a chimera ; and her husband, whatever his con- 
duct, had ever treated her with kindness of manner ; he had 
that charm, that attribute of his family, in perfection, and it 
had fascinated Mary Fairfax. 

He fled, and played for a year successfully the pranks of his-. 
youth. At last, worn out, he talked of giving himself up to 
justice. * Mr. Fenn, at the table, says that he hath been taken 
by the watch two or three times of late, at unseasonable hours, 
but so disguised they did not know him ; and when I come 
home, by and by, Mr. Lowther tells me that the Duke of 
Buckingham do dine publickly this day at Wadlow's, at the Sun 
Tavern ; and is mighty merry, and sent word to the Lieutenant 
of the Tower, that he would come to him as soon. as. he dined.* 
So Pepys states. 

Whilst in the Tower — to which he was again committed — 
Buckingham's pardon was solicited by Lady Castlemaine ; on 
which account the king was very angry with her ; called her 
a meddling ^ jade;' she calling him ^ fool,' and saying if he was 
not a fool he never would suffer his best subjects to be impri- 
soned — referring to Buckingham. And not only did she ask 
his liberty, but the restitution of his places. No wonder there 
was discontent when such things were done, and public affairs 
were in such a state. We must again quote the graphic, terse 
language of Pepys :~^ It was computed that the Parliament 
had given the king for this war only, besides all prizes, and 
besides the ^^2 00,000 which he was to spend of his own re- 
venue, to guard the sea, above ;^5, 000,000, and odd ;^ioo,ooo; 
which is a most prodigious sum. Sir H. Cholmly, as a true 
English gentleman, do decry the king's expenses of his privy 
purse, which in King James's time did not rise to above 
^5,000 a year, and in King Charles's to ;2^i 0,000, do now 
cost us above ;^i 00,000, besides the great charge of the 
monarchy, as the Duke of York has ;^i 00,000 of it, and other 
limbs of the royal family.' 

In consequence of Lady Castlemaine's intervention, Villiers" 
was restored to liberty — a strange instance, as Pepys remarks, 
of the ' fool's play' of the age. Buckingham was now as pre- 
suming as ever: he had a theatre of his own, and he soon 



A Cliange, 35 

showed his usual arrogance by beating Henry Killigrew on the 
stage, and taking away his coat and sword ; all very ^ inno- 
cently' done, according to Pepys. In July he appeared in his 
place in the House of Lords, as ' brisk as ever,* and sat in his 
robes, ^ which,' says Pepys, ' is a monstrous thing that a man 
should be proclaimed against, and put in the Tower, and re- 
leased without any trial, and yet not restored to his places.' 

We next find the duke intrusted with a mission to France, 
in concert with Halifax and Arlington. In the year 1680, he 
was threatened with an impeachment, in which, with his usual 
skill, he managed to exculpate himself by blaming Lord Arling- 
ton. The House of Commons passed a vote for his removal ; 
and he entered the ranks of the opposition. 

But this career of public meanness and private profligacy 
was drawing to a close. Alcibiades no longer — his frame 
wasted by vice — his spirits broken by pecuniary difficulties — 
Buckingham's importance visibly sank away. ^ He remained, 
at last,' to borrow the words of Hume, ^ as incapable of doing 
hurt as he had ever been little desirous of doing good to man- 
kind.' His fortune had now dwindled down to ^^300 a year 
in land ; he sold Wallingford House, and removed into the 
City. 

And now the fruits of his adversity, not, we hope, too late, 
began to appear. Like Lord Rochester, who had ordered all 
his immoral works to be burnt, Buckingham now wished to 
retrieve the past. In 1685 he wrote the religious works which 
form so striking a contrast with his other productions. 

That he had been up to the very time of his ruin perfectly 
impervious to remorse, dead also to shame, is amply mani- 
fested by his conduct soon after his duel with the Earl of 
Shrewsbury. 

Sir George Ethercgc had brought out a new play at the 
Duke of York's Theatre. It was called, ' She Would if she 
Could.' Plays in those days began at what we now consider our 
luncheon hour. Though Pepys arrived at the theatre on this 
occasion at two o'clock — his wife having gone before — about a 
thousand people had then been put back from the pit. At last, 
sccinc,^ his wife in tlie ciL^^litccn -pcuny-box, Samuel ^ made 

3—2 



36 The Duke of York's Theatre. 

shift* to get there and there saw, ^ but lord !' (his own words 
are inimitable) ' how dull, and how silly the play, there being 
nothing in the world good in it, and few people pleased in it. 
The king was there ; but I sat mightily behind, and could see 
but little, and hear not at all. The play being done, I went 
into the pit to look for my wife, it being dark and raining, but 
could not find her ; and so staid, going between the two doors 
and through the pit an hour and a half, I think, after the play 
was done ; the people staying there till the rain was over, and 
to talk to one another. And among the rest, here was the 
Duke of Buckingham to-day openly in the pit ; and there I 
found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sedley, and Etheridge 
the poet, the last of whom I did hear mightily find fault with 
the actors, that they were out of humour, and had not their 
parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing, nor could so 
much as sing a ketch in it ; and so was mightily concerned, 
while all the rest did, through the whole pit, blame the play as 
a silly, dull thing, though there was something very roguish aud 
witty ; but the design of the play, and end, mighty insipid.' 

Buckingham had held out to his Puritan friends the hope 
of his conversion for some years ; and when they attempted to 
convert him, he had appointed a time for them to finish their 
work. They kept their promise, and discovered him in the most 
profligate society. It was indeed impossible to know in what 
directions his fancies might take him, when we find him be- 
lieving in the predictions of a poor fellow in a wretched lodg- 
ing near Tower Hill, who, having cast his nativity, assured 
the duke he would be king. 

He had continued for years to live with the Countess of 
Shrewsbury, and two months after her husband's death, had 
taken her to his home. Then, at last, the Duchess of Buck- 
ingham indignantly observed, that she and the countess could 
not possibly live together. ' So I thought, madam,' was the 
reply. ^ I have therefore ordered your coach to take you to 
your father's.' It has been asserted that Dr. Sprat, the duke's 
chaplain, actually married him to Lady Shrewsbury, and that 
his legal wife was thenceforth styled ' The Duchess-dowager.' 
He retreated with his mistress to Claverdon, near Windsor, 






Buckinghmn and the Princess of Orange. 37 

situated on the summit of a hill which is washed by the 
Thames. It is a noble building, with a great terrace in front, 
under which are twenty-six niches, in which Buckingham had 
intended to place twenty-six statues as large as life ; and in the 
middle is an alcove with stairs. Here he lived with the in- 
famous countess, by whom he had a son, whom he styled Earl 
of Coventry, (his second title,) and who died an infant. 

One lingers still over the social career of one whom Louis 
XIV. called ' the only English gentleman he had ever seen.' 
A capital retort was made to Buckingham by the Princess of 
Orange, during an interview, when he stopped at the Hague, 
between her and the Duke. He was trying diplomatically to 
convince her of the affection of England for the States. ' We 
do not,' he said, ^ use Holland like a mistress, we love her as 
a wife.' * Vraime7it je crois que votes notis airaez covviie voiis 
aimez la voire' was the sharp and clever answer. 

On the death of Charles II., in 1685, Buckingham retired 
to the small remnant of his Yorkshire estates. His debts were 
now set down at the sum of ;^ 140,000. They were liquidated 
by the sale of his estates. He took kindly to a country life, to 
the surprise of his old comrade in pleasure, Etherege. *I 
have heard the news,' that wit cried, alluding to this change, 
' with no less astonishment than if I had been told that the 
Pope had begun to wear a periwig and had turned beau in 
the seventy-fourth year of his age !' 

Father Petre and Father Fitzgerald were sent by James IT. 
to convert the duke to Popery. The following anecdote is 
told of their conference with the dying sinner : — ' We deny,* 
said the Jesuit Petre, ^ that any one can be saved out of our 
Church. Your grace allows that our people may be saved.' — 
* No,' said the duke, ' I make no doubt you will all be damned 
to a man !' * Sir,' said the father, ^ I cannot argue witli a 
person so void of all charity.' — ' I did not expect, my reve- 
rend father,' said the duke, ^ such a reproach from you, whose 
whole reasoning was founded on the very same instance of 
want of charity to yourself.* 

Buckingham's death took place at Helmsby, in Yorkshire, 
and the immediate cause was an ague and fever, owing to 



38 His last HoiLTS, 

having sat down on the wet grass after fox-hunting. Pope 
has given the following forcible, but inaccurate account of his 
last hours, and the place in which they were passed : — 

' In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, 
The floors of plaster and the walls of dung, 
On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, 
With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw ; 
The George and Garter dangling from that bed, 
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, 
Great Villiers lies : — alas ! how changed from him, 
That life of pleasure and that soul of whim ! 
Gallant and gay, in Clave rdon's proud alcove, 
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love ; 
Or, just as gay, at council in a ring 
Of mimic'd statesmen and their merry King. 
No wit to flatter left of all his store. 
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more, 
Then victor of his health, of fortune, friends, 
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.* 

Far from expiring in the Svorst inn's worst room,' the duke 
breathed his last in Kirby Moorside, in a house which had 
once been the best in the place. Brian Fairfax, who loved 
this brilliant reprobate, has left the only authentic account on 
record of his last hours. 

The night previous to the duke's death Fairfax had received 
a message from him desiring him to prepare a bed for him in 
his house. Bishop Hill, in York. The next day, however, 
Fairfax was sent for to his master, whom he found dying. He 
was speechless, but gave the afflicted servant an earnest look of 
recognition. 

The Earl of Arran, son of the Duke of Hamilton, and a 
gentleman of the neighbourhood, stood by his bedside. He 
had then received the Holy Communion from a neighbouring 
clergyman of the Established Church. When the minister 
came it is said that he inquired of the duke what religion he 
professed. ^ It is,' replied the dying man, * an insignificant 
question, for I have been a shame and a disgrace to all 
religions : if you can can do me any good, pray do.' When 
a Popish priest had been mentioned to him, he answered 
vehemently, ^ No, no !' 

He was in a very low state when Lord Arran had found 
him. But though that nobleman saw death in his looks, the 



His Death, 39 

duke said he ^ felt so well at heart that he knew he could be in 
no danger.' 

He appeared to have had inflammation in the bowels, which 
ended in mortification. He begged of Lord Arran to stay 
with him. The house seems to have been in a most miserable 
condition, for in a letter from Lord Arran to Dr. Sprat, he 
says, * I confess it made my heart bleed to see the Duke of 
Buckingham in so pitiful a place, and so bad a condition, and 
w^hat made it worse, he was not at all sensible of it, for he 
thought in a day or two he should be well ; and when we 
reminded him of his condition, he said it was not as we ap- 
prehended. So I sent for a worthy gentleman, Mr. Gibson, 
to be assistant to me in this work; so w^e jointly represented 
his condition to him, who I saw was at first very uneasy ; but 
I think we should not have discharged the duties of honest 
men if we had suffered him to go out of this world without 
desiring him to prepare for death.' The duke joined heartily 
in the beautiful prayers for the dying, of our Church, and 
yet there was a sort of selfishness and indifi'erence to others 
manifest even at the last. 

^Mr. Gibson,' writes Lord Arran, ^ asked him if he had 
made a will, or if he would declare who was to be his heir ? 
l)Ut to the first, he answered he had made none ; and to the 
last, whoever was named he answered, " No." First, my lady 
duchess was named, and then I think almost everybody that 
had any relation to him, but his answer always was, " No." 
I did fully represent my lady duchess' condition to him, but 
nothing that was said to him could make him come to any 
point.' 

In this * retired corner,' as Lord Arran terms it, did the 
former wit and beau, the once brave and fine cavalier, the 
reckless plotter in after-life, end his existence. His body 
was removed to Hclmsby Castle, there to wait the duchess' 
pleasure, being meantime embalmed. Not one farthing could 
his steward produce to defray his burial. His George and 
blue ribbon were sent to the King James, with an account of 
his death. 

In Kirby Moorside the following entry in the register of 



40 Duchess of Buckingham. 

burials records the event, which is so replete with a singular 
retributive justice — so constituted to impress and sadden the 
mind : — 

* Georges Villus Lord dooke of Buckingham. ' 

He left scarcely a friend to mourn his life ; for to no man 
had he been true. He died on the i6th of April according 
to some accounts ; according to others, on the third of that 
month, 1687, in the sixty-first year of his age. His body, 
after being embalmed, was deposited in the family vault ia 
Henry VII.'s chapel.'^ He left no children, and his title was 
therefore extinct. The Duchess of Buckingham, of whom 
Brian Fairfax remarks, ^that if she had none of the vanities, 
she had none of the vices of the court,' survived him several 
years. She died in 1705, at the age of sixty-six, and was 
buried in the vault of the Villiers' family, in the chapel of 
Henry VII. 

Such was the extinction of all the magnificence and intel- 
lectual ascendency that at one time centred in the great and 
gifted family of Villiers. 

* Brian Fairfax states, that at his death (the Duke of Buckingham's) he 
charged his debts on his estate, leaving much more than enough to cover 
them. By the register of Westminster Abbey it appears that he was buried 
in Henry VII.'s Chapel, 7th June, 1687. 




1 B» IT II a* 



COUNT DE GRx\MMONT, ST. EVREMOND, 
AND LORD ROCHESTER. 



De Grammont's Choice. — His Influence with Turenne. — ^The Church or the 
Army? — An Adventure at Lyons. — A brilhant Idea. — De Grammont's 
Generosity. — A Horse 'for the Cards.' — Knight-Cicisbeism. — De Gram- 
mont's first Love. — His Witty Attacks on Mazarin. — Anne Lucie de la 
Mothe Houdancourt. — Beset with Snares. — De Grammont's Visits to 
England. — Charles II. — The Court of Charles II. — Introduction of 
Country-dances. — Norman Peculiarities. — St. Evremond, the Handsome 
Norman. — The most Beautiful Woman in Europe. — Hortense Mancini's 
Adventures. — Madame Mazarin's House at Chelsea. — ^Anecdote of Lord 
Dorset. — Lord Rochester in his Zenith. — His Courage and Wit. — 
Rochester's Pranks in the City. — Credulity, Past and Present. — ' Dr. 
Bendo,' and La Belle Jennings. — La Triste Heriti^re. — Ehzabeth, Coun- 
tess of Rochester. — Retribution and Reformation. — Conversion. — Beaux 
\vithout Wit. — Little Jermyn. — An Incomparable Beauty. — Anthony 
Hamilton, De Grammont's Biographer. — ^l^he Three Courts. — ' La Belle 
Hamilton.' — Sir Peter Lely's Portrait of her. — The Household Deity of 
Whitehall. — ^Who shall have the Caleche?*— A Chaplain in Livery. — Dc 
Grammont's Last Hours. — What might he not have been? 

T has been observed by a French critic, that the 
Memoires de Grammont afford the truest specimens 
of French character in our language. To this it may- 
be added, that the subject of that animated narrative was most 
completely French in principle, in intelligence, in wit that 
hesitated at nothing, in spirits that were never daunted, and in 
that incessant activity which is characteristic of his countrymen. 
Grammont, it was said, * slept neither night nor day ;' his life 
was one scene of incessant excitement. 

His father, supposed to have been the natural son of 
Henry the Great, of France, did not suppress that l:ict, but 
desired to publish it : for the morals of his time were so de- 
praved, that it was thought to be more honourable to be the 
illegitimate son of a king than the lawful child of lowlier 
parents. Born in the Castle of Semeae, on the banks of the 
Garonne, the fame of two fair ancestresses, Corisande and 




42 De Grammonfs Choice, 

Menadame, had entitled the family of De Grammont to ex- 
pect in each successive member an inheritance of beauty. 
Wit, courage, good nature, a charming address, and boundless 
assurance, were the heritage of Philibert de Grammont. 
Beauty was not in his possession; good nature, a more popular 
quality, he had in abundance : 

' His wit to scandal never stooping, 
His mirth ne'er to buffoonery drooping.* 

As Philibert grew up, the two aristocratic professions of 
Trance were presented for his choice : the army, or the church. 
Neither of these vocations constitutes now the ambition of the 
high-born in France : the church, to a certain extent, retains 
iis> prestige, but the army, ever since officers have risen from 
the ranks, does not comprise the same class of men as in 
England. In the reign of Louis XIII., when De Grammont 
lived it was otherwise. All political power was vested in the 
church. Richelieu was, to all purposes, the ruler of France, 
the dictator of Europe ; and, with regard to the church, great 
men, at the head of military affairs, were daily proving to 
the world, how much intelligence could effect with a small 
numerical power. Young men took one course or another : 
the sway of the cabinet, on the one hand, tempted them to 
the church ; the brilliant exploits of Turenne, and of Conde, 
on the other, led them to the camp. It was merely the 
'difference of dress between the two that constituted the dis- 
tinction : the soldier might be as pious as the priest, the priest 
was sure to be as worldly as the soldier; the soldier might 
have ecclesiastical preferment ; the priest sometimes turned 
out to fight. 

Philibert de Grammont chose to be a soldier. He was 
styled the Chevalier de Grammont, according to custom, his 
father being still living. He fought under Turenne, at the siege 
of Trino. The army in which he served was beleaguering that 
city when the gay youth from the banks of the Garonne joined 
it, to aid it not so much by his valour as by the fun, the 
raillery, the off-hand anecdote, the ready, hearty companionship 
which liofhtened the soldier's life in the trenches : adieu to 



His IiifliLencc zvith Ticrenne. 43 

impatience, to despair, even to gravity. The very generals 
could not maintain their seriousness when the light-hearted De 
Grammont uttered a repartee — 

•Sworn enemy to all long speeches, 
Lively and brilliant, frank and free, 
Author of many a repartee : 
Remember, over all, that he 
Was not renowned for storming breaches/ 

Where he came, all was sunshine, yet there breathed not a 
colder, graver man than the Calvinist Turenne : modest, 
serious, somewhat hard, he gave the young nobility who served 
under him no quarter in their shortcomings; but a word, a 
look, from De Grammont could make him, malgre hii, unbend. 
The gay chevalier's white charger's prancing, its gallant rider 
foremost in every peril, were not forgotten in after-times, when 
De Grammont, in extreme old age, chatted over the achieve- 
ments and pleasures of his youth. 

Amongst those who courted his society in Turenne's army 
was Matta, a soldier of simple manners, hard habits, and 
handsome person, joined to a candid, honest nature. He soon 
persuaded De Grammont to share his quarters, and there they 
gave splendid entertainments, which, Frenchman-like, De Gram- 
mont paid for out of the successes of the gaming-tables. But 
chances were against them ; the two officers were at the mercy 
of their maitre d'Jwtel, who asked for money. One day, 
when De Grammont came home sooner than usual, he found 
Matta fast asleep. Whilst De Grammont stood looking at 
him, he awoke, and burst into a violent fit of laughter. 

* What is the matter?' cried the chevalier. 

'Faith, chevalier,' answered Matta, ' I was dreaming that we 
had sent away our maitre d hotel, and were resolved to live 
like our neighbours for the rest of the campaign.' 

* Poor fellow !' cried De Grammont. ^So, you arc knocked 
down at once : what would have become of you if you had 
been reduced to the situation I was in at Lyons, four days 
before I came here ? Come, I will tell you all about it.' 

* Begin a little farther back,' cried Matta, * and tell me about 
the manner in which you first paid your respects to Cardinal 



44 ^J^^ Church or the A rmy ? 

Richelieu. Lay aside your pranks as a child, your genealogy, 
and all your ancestors together ; you cannot know anything, 
about them.' 

' Well/ replied De Grammont, ^ it was my father's own fault 
that he was not Henry IV.'s son : see what the Grammonts 
have lost by this crossed-grained fellow ! Faith, we might 
have walked before the Counts de Vendome at this very 
moment.'^ 

Then he went on to relate how he had been sent to Pau^ 
to the college, to be brought up to the church, with an old ser- 
vant to act both as his valet and his guardian. How his. 
head was too full of gaming to learn Latin. How they gave 
him his rank at college, as the youth of quality, when he did 
not deserve it j how he travelled up to Paris to his brother to 
be polished, and went to court in the character of an abbe. 
^Ah, Matta, you know the kind of dress then in vogue. 
No, I would not change my dress, but I consented to draw 
over it a cassock. I had the finest head of hair in the world, 
well curled and powdered above my cassock, and below were 
my white buskins and spurs.' 

Even Richelieu, that hypocrite, he went on to relate, could 
not help laughing at the parti-coloured costume, sacerdotal 
above, soldier-like below ; but the cardinal was greatly ofiended 
— not with the absence of decorum, but with the dangerous 
wit, that could laugh in public at the cowl and shaven crown, 
points which constituted the greatest portion of Richelieu's 
sanctity. 

De Grammont's brother, however, thus addressed the Che- 
valier : — * Well, my little parson,' said he, as they went home, 
*you have acted your part to perfection; but now you must 
choose your career. If you like to stick to the church, you 
will possess great revenues, and nothing to do ; if you choose 
to go into the army, you will risk your arm or your leg, but in 
time you may be a major-general with a wooden leg and a 
glass eye, the spectacle of an indifferent, ungrateful court 
Make your choice.' 

The choice, Philibert went on to relate, was made. For 
the good of his soul, he renounced the church, but for his own 



Alt Adventure at Lyons, 45 

advantage, he kept his abbacy. This was not difficult in days 
when secular abbes were common ; nothing would induce him 
to change ]iis resolution of being a soldier. Meantime he was 
perfecting his accomplishments as a fine gentleman, one of the 
requisites for which was a knowledge of all sorts of games. No 
matter that his mother was miserable at his decision. Had 
her son been an abbe', she thought he would have become a 
saint : nevertheless, v/hen he returned home, with the air of a 
courtier and a man of the world, boy as he was, and the very 
impersonation of what might then be termed la jeime Fraiice^ 
she was so enchanted with him that she consented to his going 
to the wars, attended again by Brinon, his valet, equerry, and 
Mentor in one. Next in De Grammont's narrative came his 
adventure at Lyons, where he spent the 200 louis his mother 
had given Brinon for him, in play, and very nearly broke the 
poor old servant's heart; where he had duped a horse-dealer; 
and he ended by proposing plans, similarly honourable, to be 
adopted for their present emergencies. 

The first step was to go to head-quarters, to dine with a 
certain Count de Cameran, a Savoyard, and invite him to 
supper. Here Matta interposed. 'Are you mad?' he ex- 
claimed. ' Invite him to supper ! v/e have neither money nor 
credit; we are ruined; and to save us you intend to give a 
supper !' 

' Stupid fellow !' cried De Grammont. ' Cameran plays at 
quinze : so do I : we want money. He has more than he 
knows what to do with : we give a supper, he pays for it. 
However,' he added, 'it is necessary to take certain precau- 
tions. You command the Guards : when night comes on, order 
your Sergent-dc-place to have fifteen or twenty men under arms, 
and let them lay themselves flat on the ground between this 
and head-quarters. Most likely we shall win this stupid fellow's 
money. Now the Piedmontese are suspicious, and he com- 
mands the Horse. Now, you know, Matta, you cannot hold 
your tongue, and are very likely to let out some joke that will 
vex him. Supposing he takes it into his head that he is being 
cheated ? He has always eight or ten horsemen : we nuisl be 
prepared.' 



4-6 A Brilliant Idea. 

* Embrace me !' cried Matta, ^ embrace me ! for thou art un- 
paralleled. I thought you only meant to prepare a pack of 
cards, and some false dice. But the idea of protecting a man 
who plays at quinze by a detachment of foot is excellent : thine 
own, dear Chevalier.' 

Thus, like some of Dumas' heroes, hating villany as a matter 
of course, but being by no means ashamed to acknowledge it, 
the Piedmontese was asked to supper. He came. Neverthe- 
less, in the midst of the affair, when De Cameran was losing as 
fast as he could, Matta's conscience touched him : he awoke 
from a deep sleep, heard the dice shaking, saw the poor 
Savoyard losing, and advised him to play no more. 

^ Don't you know. Count, you cannot win ?' 

'Why?' asked the Count. 

' Why, faith, because we are cheating you,' was the reply. 

The Chevalier turned round impatiently, ' Sieur Matta,' he 
cried, ' do you suppose it can be any amusement to Monsieur 
le Comte to be plagued with your ill-timed jests? For my 
part, I am so weary of the game, that I swear by Jupiter I can 
scarcely play any more.' Nothing is more distasteful to a 
losing gamester than a hint of leaving off; so the Count en- 
treated the Chevalier to continue, and assured him that ' Mon- 
sieur Matta might say what he pleased, for it did not give him 
the least uneasiness to continue.' 

The Chevalier allowed the Count to play upon credit, and 
that act of courtesy was taken very kindly : the. dupe lost 1,500 
pistoles, which he paid the next morning, when Matta was 
sharply reprimanded for his interference. 

' Faith,' he answered, * it was a point of conscience with me ; 
besides, it would have given me pleasure to have seen his 
Horse engaged with my Infantry, if he had taken anything 
amiss.' 

The sum thus gained set the spendthrifts up ; and De Gram- 
mont satisfied his conscience by giving it away, to a certain 
extent, in charity. It is singular to perceive in the history of 
this celebrated man that moral taint of character which the 
French have never lost : this total absence of right reasoning 
on all points of conduct, is coupled in our Gallic neighbours 



De Grammonfs Generosity. 47 

with the greatest natural benevolence, with a generosity onljr 
kept back by poverty, with impulsive, impressionable disposi- 
tions, that require the guidance of a sound Protestant faith to 
elevate and correct them. 

The Chevalier hastened, it is related, to find out distressed 
comrades, officers who had lost their baggage, or who had been 
ruined by gaming ; or soldiers who had been disabled in the 
trenches; and his manner of relieving them was as graceful 
and as delicate as the bounty he distributed was welcome. 
He was the darling of the army. The poor soldier knew him 
personally, and adored him ; the general was sure to meet him 
in the scenes of action, and to seek his company in those of 
security. 

And, having thus retrieved his finances, the gay-hearted 
Chevalier used, henceforth, to make De Cameran go halves 
with him in all games in which the odds were in his own favour. 
Even the staid Calvinist, Turenne, who had not then renounced, 
as he did in after-hfe, the Protestant faith, delighted in the off- 
hand merriment of the Chevalier. It was towards the end of 
the siege of Trino, that De Grammont went to visit that gene- 
ral in some new quarters, where Turenne received him, sur- 
rounded by fifteen or twenty officers. According to the custom 
of the day, cards were introduced, and the general asked the 
Chevalier to play, 

^Sir,' returned the young soldier, 'my tutor taught me that 
when a man goes to see his friends it is neither prudent to leave 
his own money behind him nor civil to take theirs.* 

'Well,' answered Turenne, 'I can tell you you will find 
neither much money nor deep play among us ; but that it 
cannot be said that we allowed you to go off without playing, 
suppose we each of us stake a horse.' 

De Grammont agreed, and, lucky as ever, won from tlic 
officers some fifteen or sixteen horses, by way of a joke; but 
seeing several faces pale, he said, 'Gentlemen, I should be 
sorry to see you go away from your general's quarters on foot ; 
it will do very well if you all send me to-morrow your horses, 
except one, which I give for the cards.' 

The vald dc-cJiambre thought he was jesting. ' I am serious,' 



48 Knight'Cicisheism. 

cried the Chevalier. ^Parole d'honneur I give a horse for the 
cards; and what's more, take which you please, only don't 
take mine.' 

^ Faith/ said Turenne, pleased with the novelty of the affair, 
*I don't believe a horse was ever before given for the cards.' 

Young people, and indeed old people, can perhaps hardly 
remember the time when, even in England, money used to be 
put under the candlesticks ^ for the cards,' as it was said, but in 
fact for the servants, who waited. Winner or loser, the tax 
was to be paid, and this custom of vails was also prevalent in 
France. 

Trino at last surrendered, and the two friends rushed from 
their campaigning life to enjoy the gaieties of Turin, at that 
time the centre of pleasure; and resolved to perfect their cha- 
racters as military heroes — by falling in love, if respectably, 
well ; if disreputably, well too, perhaps all the more agree- 
able, and venturesome, as they thought. 

The court of Turin was then presided over by the Duchess 
of Savoy, Madame Royale, as she was called in France, the 
daughter of Henry IV. of France, the sister of Henrietta Maria" 
of England. She was a woman of talent and spirit, worthy of 
her descent, and had certain other qualities which constituted a 
point of resemblance between her and her father ; she was, like 
him, more fascinating than respectable. 

The customs of Turin were rather Italian than French. At 
that time every lady had her professed lover, who wore the 
liveries of his mistress, bore her arms, and sometimes assumed 
her very name. The office of the lover was, never to quit his 
lady in public, and never to approach her in private : to be on 
all occasions her esquire. In the tournament her chosen knight- 
cicisbeo came forth with his coat, his housings, his very lance 
distinguished with the cyphers and colours of her who had con- 
descended to invest him with her preference. It was the rem- 
nant of chivalry that authorized this custom ; but of chivalry 
demoralized — chivalry denuded of her purity, her respect, the 
chivalry of corrupted Italy, not of that which, perhaps, falla- 
ciously, we assign to the earlier ages. 

Grammont and Matta enlisted themselves at once in the 



De Grammonfs First Love. 49 

service of two beauties. Grammont chose for the queen of 
beauty, who was to ^rain influence' upon him, Mademoiselle 
de St. Germain, who was in the very bloom of youth. She 
was French, and, probably, an ancestress of that all-accom- 
plished Comte de St. Germain, whose exploits so dazzled suc- 
cessive European courts, and the fullest account of whom, in 
all its brilliant colours, yet tinged with mystery, is given in the 
Memoirs of Maria Antoinette, by the Marquise d'Adhemar, her 
lady of the bed-chamber. 

The lovely object of De Grammont's ' first love' was a radiant 
brunette belle, who took no pains to set off by art the charms 
of nature. She had some defects : her black and sparkling 
eyes were small ; her forehead, by no means ^ as pure as moon- 
light sleeping upon snow,' was not fair, neither were her hands ; 
neither had she small feet — but her form generally was perfect ; 
her elbows had a peculiar elegance in them ; and in old times 
to hold the elbow out well, and yet not to stick it out, was a 
point of early discipline. Then her glossy black hair set off a 
superb neck and shoulders ; and, moreover, she was gay, full 
of mirth, life, complaisance, perfect in all the acts of polite- 
ness, and invariable in her gracious and graceful bearing. 

Matta admired her; ^but De Grammont ordered him to 
attach himself to the Marquise de Senantes, a married beauty 
of the court ; and Matta, in full faith that all Grammont said 
and did was sure to succeed, obeyed his friend. The Cheva- 
lier had fallen in love with Mademoiselle de St. Germain at 
first sight, and instantly arrayed himself in her colour, which 
was green, whilst Matta wore blue, in compliment to the mar- 
quise ; and they entered the next day upon duty, at La Venerie, 
where the Duchess of Savoy gave a grand entertainment. De 
Grammont, with his native tact and unscrupulous mendacity, 
played his part to perfection; but his comrade, Matta, com- 
mitted a hundred solecisms. The very second time he honoured 
the marquise with his attentions, he treated her as if she were 
his humble servant : when he pressed her hand, it was a pres- 
sure that almost made her scream. When he ought to have 
ridden by the side of her coach, he set off, on seeing a hare 
start from her form ; then he talked to her of partridges when 

4 



50 His Witty Attacks on Mazar in, 

he should have been laying himself at her feet. Both these 
affairs ended as might have been expected. Mademoiselle 
de St. Germain was diverted by Grammont, yet he could not 
touch her heart. Her aim was to marry ; his was merely to 
attach himself to a reigning beauty. They parted without 
regret ; and he left the then remote court of Turin for the gayer 
scenes of Paris and Versailles. Here he became as celebrated 
for his alertness in play as for his readiness in repartee ; as 
noted for his intrigues, as he afterwards' was for his bravery. 

Those were stirring days in France. Anne of Austria, then 
in her maturity, was governed by Mazarin, the most artful of 
ministers, an Italian to the very heart's core, with a love of 
amassing wealth engrafted in his supple nature that amounted 
to a monomania. The whole aim of his life was gain. Though 
gaming was at its height, Mazarin never played . for amuse- 
ment; he played to enrich himself; and when he played, he 
cheated. 

The Chevalier de Grammont was now rich, and Mazarin 
worshipped the rich. He was witty ; and his wit soon procured 
him admission into the clique whom the wily Mazarin collected 
around him in Paris. Whatever were De Grammont' s faults, 
he soon perceived those of Mazarin ; he detected, and he de- 
tested, the wily, grasping, serpent-like attributes of the Italian ; 
he attacked him on every occasion on which a ' wit combat' was 
possible : he gracefully showed Mazarin off in his true colours. 
With ease he annihilated him, metaphorically, at his own table. 
Yet De Grammont had something to atone for : he had been 
the adherent and companion in arms of Conde ; he had fol- 
lowed that hero to Sens, to Nordlingen, to Fribourg, and had 
returned to his allegiance to the young king, Louis XIV., only 
because he wished to visit the court at Paris. Mazarin's policy, 
however, was that of pardon and peace — of duplicity and 
treachery — and the Chevalier seemed to be forgiven on his re- 
turn to Paris, even by Anne of Austria. Nevertheless, De 
Grammont never lost his independence ; and he could boast in 
after-life that he owed the two great cardinals who had governed 
France nothing that they could have refused. It was true that 
Richelieu had left him his abbacy ; but he could not refuse it 



Anne Lncie de la Mo the Hoiuiancourt. 5 1 

to one of De Grammonf s rank. From Mazarin he had gained 
nothing except what he had won at play. 

After Mazarin's death the Chevaher intended to secure the 
favour of the king, Louis XIV., to whom, as he rejoiced to find, 
court alone was now to be paid. He had now somewhat recti- 
fied his distinctions between right and Avrong, and was resolved 
to have no regard for favour unless supported by merit ; he 
determined to make himself beloved by the courtiers of Louis, 
and feared by the ministers ; to dare to undertake anything to 
do good, and to engage in nothing at the expense of innocence. 
He still continued to be eminently successful in play, of which 
he did not perceive the evil, nor allow the wickedness ; but he 
was unfortunate in love, in which he was equally unscrupulous 
and more rash than at the gaming-table. 

Among the maids of honour of Anne of Austria was a young 
lady named Anne Lucie de la Mothe Houdancourt. Louis, 
though not long married, showed some symptoms of admiration 
for this debutante in the wicked ways of the court. 

Gay, radiant in the bloom of youth and innocence, the story 
of this young girl presents an instance of the unhappiness 
which, without guilt, the sins of others bring upon even the 
virtuous. The queen-dowager, Anne of Austria^ was living at 
St. Germains when Mademoiselle de la Mothe Houdancourt 
was received into her household. The Duchess de Noailles, at 
that time Gi-ande Maitresse^ exercised a vigilant and kindly rule 
over the maids of honour ; nevertheless, she could not prevent 
their being liable to the attentions of Louis : she forbade him 
however to loiter, or indeed even to be seen in the room ap- 
propriated to the young damsels under her charge ; and when 
attracted by the beauty of Annie Lucie de la Mothe, Louis was 
obliged to speak to her through a hole beliind a clock wliich 
stood in a corridor. 

Annie Lucie, notwithstanding this apparent encouragement of 
the king's addresses, was perfectly indifferent to his admiration. 
She was secretly attached to the Marquis de Richelieu, who 
had, or pretended to have, honourable intentions towards her. 
Everything was tried, but tried in vain, to induce the poor girl 
to give up all her })redilections for the sake of a guilty distinc- 

4—2 



52 Beset with Snares, 

tion — that of being the king's mistress : even her mother re- 
proached her with her coldness. A family council was heldy 
in hopes of convincing her of her wilfulness, and Annie Lucie 
was bitterly reproached by her female relatives ; but her heart 
still clung to the faithless Marquis de Richelieu, who, however, 
when he saw that a royal lover was his rival, meanly withdrew. 

Her fall seemed inevitable; but the firmness of Anne of 
Austria saved her from her ruin. That queen insisted on her 
being sent away ; and she resisted even the entreaties of the 
queen, her daughter-in-law, and the wife of Louis XIV. ; who, 
for some reasons not explained, entreated that the young lady 
might remain at the court. Anne was sent away in a sort of 
disgrace to the convent of ChaiUot, which was tlien considered 
to be quite out of Paris, and sufficiently secluded to protect her 
from visitors. According to another account, a letter full of 
reproaches, which she wrote to the Marquis de Richelieu up- 
braiding him for his desertion, had been intercepted. 

It was to this young lady that De Grammont, who was then^ 
'-^rv centre of the court, ' the type of fashion and the 
""-^died himself to her as an admirer who 
— 'fV, his attentions those whom 
/irl was thus beset with 
/ose disgusting preference 
was shown wn^.. sighs and sentiment ; on 

the other, De Grammont, wno^^ mtions to her were impor- 
tunate, but failed to convince her that he was in love ; on the 
other was the time-serving, heartless De Richelieu, whom her 
reason condemned, but whom her heart cherished. She soon 
showed her distrust and dislike of De Grammont : she treated 
him with contempt ; she threatened him with exposure, yet he 
would not desist : then she complained of him to the king. It 
was then that he perceived that though love could equalize con- 
ditions, it could not act in the same way between rivals. He 
was commanded to leave the court. Paris, therefore, Ver- 
sailles, Fontainbleau, and St. Germains were closed against this 
gay Chevalier ; and how could he live elsewhere ? Whither 
could he go ? Strange to say, he had a vast fancy to behold 
the man who, stained with the crime of regicide, and sprung 



De Grantmonfs Visits to England, 53 

from the people, was receiving magnificent embassies from con- 
tinental nations, whilst Charles II. was seeking security in his 
exile from the power of Spain in the Low Countries. He was 
eager to see the Protector, Cromwell. But Cromwell, though 
in the height of his fame when beheld by De Grammont — • 
though feared at home and abroad — was little calculated to win 
suffrages from a mere man of pleasure like De Grammont 
The court, the city, the country, were in his days gloomy, dis- 
contented, joyless : a proscribed nobility was the sure cause of 
the thin though few festivities of the now lugubrious gallery of 
Whitehall. Puritanism drove the old jovial churchmen into re- 
treat, and dispelled every lingering vestige of ancient hospi- 
tality : long graces and long sermons, sanctimonious manners, 
and grim, sad faces, and sad-coloured dresses were not much to 
De Grammont's taste ; he returned to France, and declared 
that he had gained no advantage from his travels. Neverthe- 
less, either from choice or necessity, he made another trial of 
the damps and fogs of England.'^ 

When he again visited our country, Charles II. had been two 
years seated on the throne of his fnti^--- "^ 
changed, and the Britisl 
whilst the rejoicings of tl 
tion were still resounding 

If one could include re ^ . . ... cue ratner gay than 

worthy category of the ^ wits and beaux of society,' Charles II. 
should figure at their head. He was the most agreeable com- 
panion, and the worst king imaginable. In the first place he 
was, as it were, a citizen of the world : tossed about by fortune 
from his early boyhood ; a witness at the tender age of twelve 
of the battle of Edge Hill, where the celebrated Harvey had 
charge of him and of his brother. That inauspicious com- 
mencement of a wandering life had perhaps been amongst the 
least of his early trials. The fiercest was his long residence as 
a sort of royal prisoner in Scotland. A travelled, humbled man, 
he came back to iMigland with a full knowledge of men and 
manners, in the i)rime of his life, with spirits unbroken by ad- 

* M. de Grammont visited England dnrincf the Protectorate. His second 
visit, after being forbidden tlic c nut by Ix)uis XIV., was in 1662. 



54 Charles II. 

versity, with a heart unsouredby that ' stern nurse/ with a gaiety 
that was always kindly, never uncourteous, ever more French 
than English ; far more natural did he appear as the son of 
Henrietta Maria than as the offspring of the thoughtful Charles. 

In person, too, the king was then agreeable, though rather 
what the French would call distingue than dignified ; he was, 
however, tall, and somewhat elegant, with a long French face, 
which in his boyhood was plump and full about the lower part 
of the cheeks, but now began to sink into that well-known, lean,, 
dark, flexible countenance, in which we do not, however, re- 
cognize the gaiety of the man whose very name brings with it 
associations of gaiety, politeness, good company, and all the 
attributes of a first-rate wit, except the almost inevitable ill- 
nature. There is in the physiognomy of Charles II. that me- 
lancholy which is often observable in the faces of those who^ 
are mere men of pleasure. 

De Grammont found himself completely in his own sphere 
at Whitehall, where the habits were far more French than En- 
glish. Along that stately Mall, overshadowed with umbrageous 
trees, which retains — and it is to be hoped ever will retain — the 
old name of the ' Birdcage Walk,' one can picture to oneself 
the king walking so fast that no one can keep up with him ; 
yet stopping from time to time to chat with some acquaintances. 
He is walking to Duck Island, which is full of his favourite 
water-fowl, and of which he has given St. Evremond the go- 
vernment. How pleasant is his talk to those who attend him 
as he walks along ; how well the quality of good-nature is shown 
in his love of dumb animals ; bow completely he is a boy still, 
even in that brown wig of many curls, and with the George and 
Garter on his breast ! Boy, indeed, for he is followed by a 
litter of young spaniels : a little brindled greyhound frisks 
beside him ; it is for that he is ridiculed by the 'psalm' sung at 
the Calves' Head Club : these favourites were cherished to his 
death. 

' His dogs would sit in council boards 
Like judges in their seats : 
We question much which had most sense, 
The master or the curs. ' 

Then what capital stories Charles would tell, as he unbent at 



TJic Coicrt of Cliarlcs II. 5 5 

night amid the faithful, though profligate, companions of his 
exile ! He told his anecdotes, it is true, over and over again, 
yet they were always embellished with some fresh touch — like 
the repetition of a song which has been encored on the stage. 
Whether from his inimitable art, or from his royalty, we leave 
others to guess, but his stories bore repetition again and again : 
they were amusing, and even novel to the very last. 

To this seducing court did De Grammont now come. It was 
a delightful exchange from the endless ceremonies and puncti- 
lios of the region over which Louis XIV. presided. Wherever 
Charles was, his palace appeared to resemble a large hospit- 
able house — sometimes town, sometimes country — in which 
every one did as he liked ; and where distinctions of rank were 
kept up as a matter of convenience, but were only valued on 
that score. 

In other respects, Charles had modelled his court very much 
on the plan of that of Louis XIV., which he had admired for 
its gaiety and spirit. Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, were 
encouraged by k Grand Mona^-qice. Wycherley and Dryden 
were attracted by Charles to celebrate the festivities, and to 
amuse the great and the gay. In various points De Grammont 
found [a resemblance. The queen-consort, Catherine of Bra- 
ganza, was as complacent to her husband's vices as the queen 
of Louis. These royal ladies were merely first sultanas, and 
had no right, it was thought, to feel jealousy, or to resent neg- 
lect. Each returning sabbath saw Whitehall lighted up, and 
heard the tabors sound for a branlc^ (Anglicised * brawl') 
This was a dance which mixed up everybody, and called a 
brawl, from the foot being shaken to a quick time. Gaily did 
his Majesty perform it, leading to the hot exercise Anne Hyde, 
Duchess of York, stout and homely, and leaving Lady Castle- 
maine to his son, the Duke of Monmouth. Then Charles, with 
ready grace, would begin the coranto, taking a single lady in 
this dance along the gallery. Lords and ladies one after another 
followed, and ' very noble,' writes Pepys, ' and great pleasure 
it was to see.' Next came the country dances, introduced by 
Mary, Countess of Buckingham, the grandmother of the grace- 
ful duke who is moving along the gallery ; — and she invented 



56 Norman Peadiarities. 

those once popular dances in order to introduce, with less 
chance of failure, her rustic country cousins, who could not 
easily be taught to carry themselves well in the brawl, or to 
step out gracefully in the coranto, both of which dances re- 
quired practice and time. In all these dances the king shines 
the most, and dances much better than his brother the Duke 
of York. 

In these gay scenes De Grammont met with the most 
fashionable belles of the court : fortunately for him they all 
spoke French tolerably ; and he quickly made himself welcome 
amongst even the few — and few indeed there were — ^who 
plumed themselves upon untainted reputations. Hitherto 
those French noblemen who had presented themselves in Eng- 
land had been poor and absurd. The court had been thronged 
with a troop of impertinent Parisian coxcombs, who had pre- 
tended to despise everything English, and who treated the 
natives as if they were foreigners in their own country. De 
Grammont, on the contrary, was familiar with every one : he 
ate, he drank, he lived, in short, according to the custom of 
the country that hospitably received him, and accorded him 
the more respect, because they had been insulted by others. 

He now introduced ih^ petit s soupers^ which have never been 
understood anywhere so well as in France, and which are even 
there dying out to make way for the less social and more ex- 
pensive dinner ; but, perhaps, he would even here havs been 
unsuccessful, had it not been for the society and advice of the 
famous St. Evremond, who at this time was exiled in France, 
and took refuge in England. 

This celebrated and accomplished man had some points of 
resemblance with De Grammont. Like him, he had been ori- 
ginally intended for the church ; like him he had turned to the 
military profession ; he was an ensign before he was full six- 
teen ; and had a company of foot given him after serving two 
or three campaigns. Like De Grammont, he owed the faci- 
lities of his early career to his being the descendant of an 
ancient and honourable family. St. Evremond was the 
Seigneur of St. Denis le Guast, in Normandy, where he was 
born. 



St. Evrcviondy the Handsome Norman. 57 

Both these sparkling wits of society had at one time, and, 
in fact, at the same period, served under the great Conde ; both, 
were pre-eminent, not only in literature, but in games of chance. 
St. Evremond was famous at the University of Caen, in which 
he studied, for his fencing ; and ^ St. Evremond's pass' was well 
known to swordsmen of his time ; — ^both were gay and satirical ; 
neither of them pretended to rigid morals ; but both were ac- 
counted men of honour among their fellow-men of pleasure. 
They were graceful, kind, generous. 

In person St. Evremond had the advantage, being a Nor- 
man — a race which combines the handsomest traits of an 
English countenance with its blond hair, blue eyes, and fair 
skin. Neither does the slight tinge of the Gallic race detract 
from the attractions of a true, well-born Norman, bred up in 
that province which is called the Court-end of France, and 
polished in the capital. Your Norman is hardy, and fond of 
field-sports : like the Englishman, he is usually fearless ; gene- 
rous, but, unlike the English, somewhat crafty. You may know 
him by the fresh colour, the peculiar blue eye, long and large ; 
by his joyousness and look of health, gathered up in his own 
marshy country, for the Norman is well fed, and lives on the 
produce of rich pasture-land, with cheapness and plenty around 
him. And St. Evremond was one of the handsomest speci- 
mens of this fine locality (so mixed up as it is with us) ; and 
his blue eyes sparkled with humour ; his beautifully-turned 
mouth was all sweetness ; and his noble forehead, the whiteness 
of which was set off by thick dark eyebrows, was expressive of 
his great intelligence, until a wen grew between his eyebrows, 
and so changed all the expression of his face that the Duchess 
of Mazarin used to call him the ' Old Satyr.' St. Evremond 
was also Norman in other respects : he called himself a 
thorough Roman Catholic, yet he despised the superstitions of 
his churcli, and prepared himself for death without thcnii. 
When asked by an ecclesiastic sent expressly from the court 
of Florence to attend his death-bed, if he * would be recon- 
ciled,' he answered, * With all my heart ; I would fain be re- 
conciled to my stomach, which no longer performs its usual 
functions.' And his talk, we are told, during the fortnight 



58 The most Beautiful Wo^nan in Europe, 

that preceded his death, was not regret for a Hfe we should, 
in seriousness, call misspent, but because partridges and phea- 
sants no longer suited his condition, and he was obliged to be 
reduced to boiled meats. No one, however, could tell what 
might also be passing in his heart. We cannot always judge 
of a life, any more than of a drama, by its last scene ; but this 
is certain, that in an age of blasphemy St. Evremond could 
not endure to hear religion insulted by ridicule. ' Common 
decency,' said this man of the world, ^and a due regard to 
our fellow-creatures, would not permit it.' He did not, it 
seems, refer his displeasure to a higher source — to the pre- 
sence of the Omniscient, — who claims from us all not alone 
the tribute of our poor frail hearts in serious moments, but 
the deep reverence of every thought in the hours of careless 
pleasure. 

It was now St. Evremond who taught De Grammont to col- 
lect around him the wits of that court, so rich in attractions, so 
poor in honour and morality. The object of St. Evremond's 
devotion, though he had, at the aera of the Restoration, passed 
his fiftieth year, was Hortense Mancini, once the richest 
heiress, and still the most beautiful woman in Europe, and a 
niece, on her mother's side, of Cardinal Mazarin. Hortense 
had been educated, after the age of six, in France. She was 
Italian in her accomplishments, in her reckless, wild disposi- 
tion, opposed to that of the French, who are generally calcu- 
lating and wary, even in their vices : she was Italian in the 
style of her surpassing beauty, and French to the core in her 
principles. Hortense, at the age of thirteen, had been mar- 
ried to Armand Due de Meilleraye and Mayenne, who had 
fallen so desperately in love with this beautiful child, that he 
declared ^ if he did not marry her he should die in three 
months.' Cardinal Mazarin, although he had destined his 
niece Mary to this alliance, gave his consent on condition that 
the duke should take the name of Mazarin. The cardinal died 
a year after this marriage, leaving his niece Hortense the enor- 
mous fortune of ;^i, 625,000; yet she died in the greatest 
difficulties, and her corpse was seized by her creditors. 

The Due de Mayenne proved to' be a fanatic, who used to 



H or tense Mancini's Adventzurs, 59 

waken his wife in the dead of the night to hear his visions ;. 
who forbade his child to be nursed on fast-days ; and who be- 
lieved himself to be inspired. After six years of wretchedness 
poor Hortense petitioned for a separation and a division of 
property. She quitted her husband's home and took refuge 
first in a nunnery, where she showed her unbelief, or her irre- 
verence, by mixing ink with holy-water, that the poor nuns 
might black their faces when they crossed themselves ; or, in 
concert with Madame de Courcelles, another handsome mar- 
ried woman, she used to walk through the dormitories in the- 
dead of night, with a number of little dogs barking at their 
heels ; then she filled two great chests that were over the dor- 
mitories with water, which ran over, and, penetrating through 
the chinks of the floor, wet the holy sisters in their beds. At 
length all this sorry gaiety was stopped by a decree that Hor- 
tense was to return to the Palais Mazarin ; and to remain there 
until the suit for a separation should be decided. That the re- 
sult should be favourable Avas doubtful : therefore, one fine night 
in June, 1667, Hortense escaped. She dressed herself in male at- 
tire, and, attended by a female servant, managed to get through the 
gate at Paris, and to enter a carriage. Then she fled to Swit- 
zerland ; and, had not her flight been shared by the Chevalier 
de Rohan, one of the handsomest men in France, one could 
hardly have blamed an escape from a half-lunatic husband. She 
was only twenty-eight when, after various adventures, she came 
in all her unimpaired beauty to England. Charles was captivated 
by her charms, and, touched by her misfortunes, he setded on 
her a pension of ^^4,000 a year, and gave her rooms in St. 
James's. Waller sang her praise : — 

' Wlien through the world fair Mazarine liad run, 
Bright as her fellow-traveller, the sun : 
Hither at length the Roman eagle flics, 
As the last triumph of her conquering eyes.' 

If Hortense fiiilcd to carry off from the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth — then the star of Whitehall— the heart of Charles, she 
found, at all events, in St. Evremond, one of those French, j^la- 
tonic, life-long friends, who, as Chateaubriand worshipped Ma- 



6o Madame Mazarins House at Chelsea, 

dame Recamier, adored to the last the exiled niece of Mazarin. 
Every day, when in her old age and his, the warmth of love 
had subsided into the serener affection of pitying, and yet ad- 
miring friendship, St. Evremond was seen, a little old man in 
a black coif, carried along Pall Mall in a sedan chair, to the 
apartment of Madame Mazarin. in St. James's. He always 
took with him a pound of butter, made in his own little dairy, 
for her breakfast. When De Grammont was installed at the 
court of Charles, Hortense was, however, in her prime. Her 
house at Chelsea, then a country village, was famed for its so- 
ciety and its varied pleasures. St. Evremond has so well des- 
cribed its attractions that his words should be literally given. 
' Freedom and discretion are equally to be found there. Every 
^one is made more at home than in his own house, and treated 
with more respect than at court. It is true that there are fre- 
quent disputes there, but they are those of knowledge and not 
of anger. There is play there, but it is inconsiderable, and 
•only practised for its amusement. You discover in no counte- 
nance the fear of losing, nor concern for what is lost. Some 
are so disinterested that they are reproached br expressing joy . 
when they lose, and regret when they win. Play is followed by 
the most excellent repasts in the world. There you will find 
whatever delicacy is brought from France, and whatever is cu- 
rious from the Indies. Even the commonest meats have the 
rarest relish imparted to them. There is neither a plenty which 
gives a notion of extravagance, nor a frugality that discovers 
penury or meanness.' 

What an assemblage it must have been ! Here lolls Charles, 
Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Loid Dorset, the laziest, in mat- 
ters of business or court advancement — the boldest, in point 
of frolic and pleasure, of all the wits and beaux of his time. 
His youth had been full of adventure and of dissipation. ^ I 
kiiow not how it is,' said Wilmot, Lord Rochester, ' but my 
Lord Dorset can do anything, and is never j;o blame.' He had, 
in truth, a heart ; he could bear to hear others praised ; he 
despised the arts of courtiers ; he befriended the unhappy ; he 
was the most engaging of men in manners, the most loveable 
and accomplished of human beings; at once poet, philan- 



A necdotc of L ord Do7'set. 6 r 

thropist, and wit ; he was also possessed of chivalric notions, 
and of daring courage. 

Like his royal master, Lord Dorset had travelled ; and when 
made a gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles II., he was 
not unlike his sovereign in other traits ; so full of gaiety, so 
high-bred, so lax, so courteous, so convivial, that no supper 
was complete without him : no circle * the right thing,' unless 
Buckhurst, as he was long called, was there to pass the bottle 
round, and to keep every one in good-humour Yet, he had 
misspent a youth in reckless immorality, and had even been 
in Newgate on a charge, a doubtful charge it is true, of high- 
way robbery and murder, but had been found guilty of man- 
slaughter only. He was again mixed up in a disgraceful 
affair with Sir Charles Sedley. When brought before Sir Robert 
Hyde, then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, his name 
having been mentioned, the judge inquired whether that was 
the Buckhurst lately tried for robbery ? and when told it was, 
he asked him whether he had so soon forgotten his deliver- 
ance at that time : and whether it would not better become 
him to have been at his prayers begging God's forgiveness than 
to come into such courses again ? 

The reproof took effect, and Buckhurst became what was 
then esteemed a steady man ; he volunteered and fought 
gallantly in the fleet under James Duke of York : and he com- 
pleted his reform, to all outward show, by marrying Lady 
Falmouth.* Buckhurst, in society, the most good-tempered 
of men, was thus referred to by Prior, in his poetical epistle to 
Fleetwood Sheppard : — 

' When crowding folks, with strange ill faces, 
Were making legs, and begging places : 
And some with patents, some with merit, 
Tired out my good Lord Dorset's spirit.' 

Yet his pen was full of malice, whilst his heart was tender to 

all. Wilmot, Lord Rochester, cleverly said of him :— - 

' For pointed satire I would Buckhurst chuse, 
The best good man with the worst-naturcd muse.' 



* The Earl of Dorset married Elizabeth, widow of Charles Berkeley, Earl 
of Falmouth, and daughter of Her\ey Bagot, Esq., of Pipe Hall, Wanvick- 
shire, who died without issue. He married, 7th March, 1684 — 5, Lady Mary 
Compton, daughter of James Earl of Northampton. 



62 Lord Rochester in his Zenith. 

Still more celebrated as a beau and wit of his time, was John 
Wilinot, Lord Rochester. He was the son of Lord Wilmot, 
the cavalier who so loyally attended Charles 11. after the 
Battle of Worcester ; and, as, the offspring of that royalist, 
was greeted by Lord Clarendon, then Chancellor of the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, when he took his degree as Master of Arts, 
with a kiss.'" The young nobleman then travelled, according 
to custom; and then most unhappily for himself and for 
others, whom he corrupted by his example, he presented him- 
self at the court of Charles 11. He was at this time a youth 
of eighteen, and one of the handsomest persons of his age. 
The face of Buckhurst was hard and plain ; that of De 
Grammont had little to redeem it but its varying intelligence ; 
but the countenance of the young Earl of Rochester was per- 
fectly symmetrical : it was of a long oval, with large, thoughtful, 
sleepy eyes ; the eyebrows arched and high above them ; the 
'brow, though concealed by the curls of the now modest wig, 
was high and smooth ; the nose, delicately shaped, somewhat 
aquiline ; the mouth full, but perfectly beautiful, was set off by a 
round and well-formed chin. Such was Lord Rochester in his 
zenith ; and as he came forward on state occasions, his false 
light curls hanging down on his shoulders — a cambric kerchief 
loosely tied, so as to let the ends, worked in point, fall grace- 
fully down : his scarlet gown in folds over a suit of light steel 
armour — for men had become carpet knights then, and the 
coat of mail worn by the brave cavaliers was now less warlike, 
and was mixed up with robes, ruffles, and rich hose — and when 
in this guise he appeared at Whitehall, all admired ; and Charles 
was enchanted with the simplicity, the intelligence, and modesty 
of one who was then an ingenuous youth, with good aspirations, 
and a staid and decorous demeanour. 

Woe to Lady Rochester — woe to the mother who trusted her 
son's innocence in that vitiated court ! Lord Rochester forms 
one of the many instances we daily behold, that it is those 
most tenderly cared for, who often fall most deeply, as well as 
most early, into temptation. He soon lost every trace of 

^ Lord Rochester succeeded to the Earldom in 1659. It was created by 
Charles II. in 1652, at Paris. 



His Coitragc and Wit. 6'}^ 

virtue — of principle, even of deference to received :notions of 
propriety. For a while there seemed hopes that he would not 
wholly fall : courage was his inheritance, and he distinguished 
himself in 1665, when as a volunteer, he went in quest of the 
Dutch East India fleet, and served with heroic gallantry under 
Lord Sandwich. And when he returned to court, there was a 
partial improvement in his conduct. He even looked back 
upon his former indiscretions with horror : he had now shared 
in the realities of life : he had grasped a high and honourable 
ambition ; but he soon fell away — soon became almost a cast- 
away. ' For five years,' he told Bishop Burnet, when on his 
death-bed, ^ I was never sober.' His reputation as a wit must 
rest, in the present day, chiefly upon productions which, have 
long since been condemned as unreadable. Strange to say, 
when not under the influence of wine, he was a constant 
student of classical authors, perhaps the worst reading for a 
man of his tendency : all that was satirical and impure attract- 
ing him most. Boileau, among French writers, and Cowley 
among the English, w^ere his favourite authors. He also read 
many books of physic ; for long before thirty his constitution 
was so broken by his life, that he turned his attention to reme- 
dies, and to medical treatment ; and it is remarkable how many 
men of dissolute lives take up the same sort of reading, in the 
vain hope of repairing a course of dissolute living. As a 
Avriter, his style was at once forcible and lively ; as a com- 
panion, he was wildly vivacious : madly, perilously, did he 
outrage decency, insult virtue, profane religion. Charles 11. 
liked him on first acquaintance, for Rochester was a man of 
the most finished and fascinating manners ; but at length there 
came a coolness, and the witty courtier was banished from 
Whitehall. Unhappily for himself, he was recalled, and com- 
manded to wait in London until his majesty should choose to 
readmit him into his presence. 

Disguises and practical jokes were the fashion of the day. 
The use of the mask, wliich was put down by proclamation 
soon after the accession of Queen Anne, fiivourcd a series of 
pranks with which Lord Rochester, during the period of hi.^ 
living concealed in London, diverted himself Tlu^ success 



64 Credulity y Past and Present, 

of his scheme was perfect. He estabhshed himself, since he 
could not go to Whitehall, in the City. ' His first design,' 
De Grammont relates, *was only to be initiated into the 
mysteries of those fortunate and happy inhabitants ; that is 
to say^ by changing his name and dress, to gain admittance 
to their feasts and entertainments. ... As he was able to 
adapt himself to all capacities and humours, he soon deeply 
insinuated himself into the esteem of the substantial wealthy 
aldermen, and into the affections of their more delicate, mag- 
nificent, and tender ladies ; he made one in all their feasts 
and at all their assemblies ; and whilst in the company of the 
husbands, he declaimed against the faults and mistakes of 
government; he joined their wives in raiHng against the 
profligacy of the court ladies, and in inveighing against the 
king's mistresses : he agreed with them, that the industrious 
poor were to pay for these cursed extravagances ; that the City 
beauties were not inferior to those at the other end of the 
town, . . . after which, to outdo their murmurings, he said, 
that he wondered Whitehall was not yet consumed by fire from 
heaven, since such rakes as Rochester, Killigrew, and Sidney 
were suffered there.' 

This conduct endeared him so much to the City, and made 
him so welcome at their clubs, that at last he grew sick of 
their cramming, and endless invitations. 

He now tried a new sphere of action ; and instead of re- 
turning, as he might have done, to the court, retreated into 
the most obscure corners of the metropolis ; and again chang- 
ing his name and dress, gave himself out as a German doctor 
named Bendo, who professed to find out inscrutable secrets, 
and to apply infallible remedies ; to know, by astrology, all 
the past, and to foretell the future. 

If the reign of Charles was justly deemed an age of high 
civilization, it was also one of extreme credulity. Unbelief in 
religion went hand in hand with blind faith in astrology and 
witchcraft \ in omens, divinatipns, and prophecies : neither let 
us too strongly despise, in these their foibles, our ancestors. 
They had many excuses for their superstitions .; and for their 
fears, false as their hopes, and equally groundless. The circu- 



^ Di\ Bcndo^ and La Belle Jemiings, 65 

lation of knowledge was limited : the public journals, that part 
of the press to which we now owe inexpressible gratitude for 
its general accuracy, its enlarged views, its purity, its infor- 
mation, was then a meagre statement of dry facts: an an- 
nouncement, not a commentary. ' The Flying Post,' the ^ Daily 
Courant,' the names of which may be supposed to imply 
speed, never reached lone country places till weeks after they 
had been printed on their one duodecimo sheet of thin coarse 
paper. Religion, too, just emerging into glorious light from 
the darkness of popery, had still her superstitions ; and the 
mantle that priestcraft had contrived to throw over her ex- 
quisite, radiant, and simple form, was not then wholly and 
finally withdrawn. Romanism still hovered in the form of 
credulity. 

But now, with shame be it spoken, in the full noonday 
genial splendour of our Reformed Church, with newspapers, 
tlie leading articles of which rise to a level with our greatest 
didactic writers, and are competent even to form the mind as 
well as to amuse the leisure hours of the young readers : with 
every species of direct communication, we yet hold to falla- 
cies from which the credulous in Charles's time would have 
shrunk in dismay and disgust. Table-turning, spirit-rapping, 
clairvoyafice, Swedenborgianism, and all that family of follies, 
would have been far too strong for the faith of those who 
counted upon dreams as their guide, or looked up to the 
heavenly planets with a belief, partly superstitious, partly 
reverential, for their guidance; and in a dim and flickering 
faith trusted to their stars. 

^ Dr. Bendo,' therefore, as Rochester was called — handsome, 
witty, unscrupulous, and perfectly acquainted with the then 
small circle of the court — was soon noted for his wonderful 
revelations. Chamber-women, waiting-maids, and shop-girLs 
were his first customers : but, very soon, gay spinsters from 
the court came in their hoods and masks to ascertain with 
anxious faces, their fortunes ; whilst the cunning, sarcastic 
* Dr. Bendo,' noted in his diary all the intrigues which were 
confided to him by these lovely clients. La Belle Jennings, 
the sister of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, was among his 

5 



(^ La Triste Herititre, 

disciples ; she took with her the beautiful Miss Price, and, 
disguising themselves as orange girls, these young ladies set off 
in a hackney-coach to visit Dr. Bendo ; but when within half a 
street of the supposed fortune-teller's, were prevented by the 
interruption of a dissolute courtier named Brounker. 
- ^ Everything by turns and nothing long.' When Lord Ro- 
chester was tired of being an astrologer, he used to roam about 
the streets as a beggar ; then he kept a footman who knew the 
Court well, and used to dress him up in a red coat, supply him 
with a musket, like a sentinel, and send him to watch at the 
doors of all the fine ladies, to find out their goings on : after- 
wards, Lord Rochester would retire to the country, and write 
libels on these fair victims, and, one day, offered to present the 
king with one of his lampoons ; but being tipsy, gave Charles, 
instead, one written upon himself 

At this juncture we read with sorrow Bishop Burnet's forcible 
description of his career : — 

' He seems to have freed himself from all impressions of 
virtue or religion, of honour or good nature. . . . He had but 
one maxim, to which he adhered firmly, that he has to do 
everything, and deny himself in nothing that might maintain 
his greatness. He was unhappily made for drunkenness, for ' 
he had drunk all his friends dead, and was able to subdue 
two or three sets of drunkards one after another ; so it scarce 
ever appeared that he was disordered after the greatest drink- 
ing : an hour or two of sleep carried all off so entirely, that no 
sign of them remained. . . . This had a terrible conclusion.' 

Like many other men, Rochester might have been saved by 
being kept far from the scene of temptation. Whilst he re- 
mained in the country he was tolerably sober, perhaps steady. 
When he approached Brentford on his route to London, his old 
propensities came upon him. 

When scarcely out of his boyhood he carried off a young 
heiress, Elizabeth Mallett, whom De Grammont calls La triste 
heritiere: and triste, indeed, she naturally was. Possessed of 
a fortune of ;^25oo a year, this young lady was marked out by 
Charles II. as a victim for the profligate Rochester. But the 
reckless young wit chose to take his own way of managing the 



I 



Elizabeth, Countess of Rochester. 67 

matter. One night, after supping at Whitehall with Miss Stuart, 
the young Elizabeth was returning home with her grandfather, 
Lord Haly, when their coach was suddenly stopped near 
Charing Cross by a number of bravos, both on horseback and 
on foot — the 'Roaring Boys and Mohawks/ who were not ex- 
tinct even in Addison's time. They lifted the affrighted girl 
out of the carriage, and placed her in one which had six horses; 
they then set off for Uxbridge, and were overtaken ; but the 
outrage ended in marriage, and Elizabeth became the unhappy, 
neglected Countess of Rochester. Yet she loved him— perhaps 
in ignorance of all that was going on whilst she stayed with her 
four children at home. 

' If,' she writes to him, ' I could have been troubled at any- 
thing, when I had the happiness of receiving a letter from 
you, I should be so, because you did not name a time when I 
might hope to see you, the uncertainty of which very much 
afflicts me. . . . Eay your commands upon me what I am to 
do, and though it be to forget my children, and the long hope 
I have lived in of seeing you, yet will I endeavour to obey 
you; or in the memory only torment myself, without giving 
you the trouble of putting you in mind that there lives a 
creature as 

* Your faithful, humble servant. 

And he, in reply : ' I went away (to Rochester) like a rascal, 
without taking leave, dear wife. It is an unpolished way of 
proceeding, which a modest man ought to be ashamed of. 
I have left you a prey to your own imaginations amongst 
my relations, the worst of damnations. But there will come 
an hour of deliverance, till when, may my mother be merci- 
ful unto you ! So I commit you to what I shall ensue, woman 
to woman, wife to mother, in hopes of a future appearance in 
glory. ... 

' Pray write as often as you have leisure, to your 

'Rochester.' 

To his son, he writes : ' You are now gro\\Ti big enough to 
be a man, if you can be wise enough ; and the wa) to be truly 



68 Retribution and Reformation. 

wise is to serve God, learn your book, and observe the in- 
structions of your parents first, and next your tutor, to whom 
I have entirely resigned you for this seven years; and accord- 
ing as you employ that time, you are to be happy or unhappy 
for ever. I have so good an opinion of you, that I am glad to 
think you will never deceive me. Dear child, learn your book 
and be obedient, and you will see what a father I shall be to 
you. You shall want no pleasure while you are good, and that 
you may be good are my constant prayers.' 

Lord Rochester had not attained the age of thirty, when he 
was mercifully awakened to a sense of his guilt here, his peril 
hereafter. It seemed to many that his very nature was so 
warped that penitence in its true sense could never come 
to him ; but the mercy of God is unfathomable ; He judges 
not as man judges ; He forgives, as man knows not how to 
forgive. 

* God, our kind Master, merciful as just, 
Knowing our frame, remembers man is dust : 
He marks the dawn of every virtuous aim, 
And fans the smoking flax into a flame ; 
He hears the language of a silent tear, 
And sighs are incense from a heart sincere/ 

And the reformation of Rochester is a confirmation of the doc- 
trine of a special Providence, as well as of that of a retribution, 
even in this life. 

The retribution came in the form of an early but certain 
decay ; of a sufiering so stem, so composed of mental and 
bodily anguish, that never was man called to repentance by a 
voice so distinct as Rochester. The reformation was sent 
through the instrumentality of one who had been a sinner like 
himself, who had sinned with him ; an unfortunate lady, who, 
in her last hours, had been visited, reclaimed, consoled by 
Bishop Burnet. Of this. Lord Rochester had heard. He was 
then, to all appearance, recovering from his last sickness. He 
sent for Burnet, who devoted to him one evening every week 
of that solemn winter when the soul of the penitent sought 
reconciliation and peace. 

The conversion was not instantaneous ; it was gradual, pene- 
trating, effective, sincere. Those who wish to gratify curiosity 



Conversion. 69 

concerning the death-bed of one who had so notoriously sinned, 
will read Burnet's account of Rochester's illness and death with 
deep interest ; and nothing is so interesting as a death-bed. 
Those who delight in works of nervous thought, and elevated 
sentiments, will read it too, and arise from the perusal grati- 
fied. Those, however, who are true, contrite Christians will go 
still farther ; they will own that few works so intensely touch 
the holiest and highest feelings ; few so absorb the heart ; few 
so greatly show the vanity of life ; the unspeakable value of 
purifying faith. * It is a book which the critic,' says Doctor 
Johnson, ' may read for its elegance, the philosopher for its ar- 
guments, the saint for its piety.* 

Whilst deeply lamenting his own sins. Lord Rochester be- 
came anxious to redeem his former associates from theirs. 

* When Wilmot, Earl of Rochester,'^ writes William Thomas, 
in a manuscript preserved in the British Museum, * lay on his 
death-bed, Mr. Fanshawe came to visit him, with an intention 
to stay about a week with him. Mr. Fanshawe, sitting by the 
bedside, perceived his lordship praying to God, through Jesus 
Christ, and acquainted Dr. Radcliffe, who attended my Lord 
Rochester in this illness and was then in the house, with what 
he had heard, and told him that my lord was certainly delirious, 
for to his knowledge, he said, he believed neither in God nor 
in Jesus Christ. The doctor, who had often heard him pray in 
the same manner, proposed to Mr. Fanshawe to go up to his 
lordship to be further satisfied touching this affair. When they 
came to his room the doctor told my lord what Mr. Fanshawe 
said, upon which his lordship addressed himself to Mr. Fan- 
shawe to this effect : " Sir, it is true, you and I have been very 
bad and profane together, and then I was of the opinion you 
mention. But now I am quite of another mind, and happy am 
I that I am so. I am very sensible how miserable I was 
whilst of another opinion. Sir, you may assure yourself that 
there is a Judge and a future state ;" and so entered into a very 
handsome discourse concerning the last judgment, future state, 

• Mr. William Thomas, the writer of this statement, heard it from Dr. Rad- 
cliffe at the table of Speaker llarley, (afterwards Earl of Oxford,) i6th June, 
1702. 



70 Beaux tvithout Wit 

&c., and concluded with a serious and pathetic exhortation to 
Mr. Fanshawe to enter into another course of life ; adding that 
he (Mr. F.) knew him to be his friend ; that he never was more 
so than at this time ; and " sir," said he, " to use a Scripture 
expression, I am not mad, but speak the words of truth and 
soberness." Upon this Mr. Fanshawe trembled, and went im- 
mediately a-foot to Woodstock, and there hired a horse to 
Oxford, and thence took coach to London.' 

There were other butterflies in that gay court ; beaux with- 
out wit ; remorseless rakes, incapable of one noble thought or 
high pursuit ; and amongst the most foolish and fashionable 
of these was Henry Jermyn, Lord Dover. As the nephew of 
Henry Jermyn, Lord St. Albans, this young simpleton was 
ushered into a court life with the most favourable auspices. 
Jermyn Street (built in 1667) recalls to us the residence of 
Lord St. Albans, _ the supposed husband of Henrietta Maria. 
It was also the centre of fashion when Henry Jermyn the 
younger was launched into its unholy sphere. Near Eagle 
Passage lived at that time La Belle Stuart, Duchess of Rich- 
mond; "next door to her Henry Savile, Rochester's friend. 
The locality has since been purified by worthier associations : 
Sir Isaac Newton lived for a time in Jermyn Street, and Gray 
lodged there. 

It was, however, in De Grammont's time, the scene of all 
the various gallantries which were going on. Henry Jermyn 
was supported by the wealth of his uncle, that uncle who, 
whilst Charles II. was starving at Brussels, had kept a lavish 
table in Paris : little Jermyn, as the younger Jermyn was called, 
owed much indeed to his fortune, which had procured him 
great eclut at the Dutch court. His head was large ; his 
features small ; his legs short ; his physiognomy was not posi- 
tively disagreeable, but he was affected and trifling, and his 
wit consisted in expressions learnt by rote, which supplied him 
either with raillery or with compliments. 

This petty, inferior being had attracted the regard of the 
Princess Royal — afterwards Princess of Orange — the daughter 
of Charles I. Then the Countess of Castlemaine — afterwards 
Duchess of Cleveland — became infatuated with him; he cap- 



A 71 Incomparable Beauty. 71 

tivated also the lovely Mrs. Hyde, a languishing beauty, whom 
Sir Peter Lely has depicted in all her sleepy attractions, with 
her ringlets falling lightly over her snowy forehead and down 
to her shoulders. This lady w^as, at the time when Jermyn 
came to England, recently married to the son of the great 
Clarendon. She fell desperately in love with this unworthy 
being ; but, happily for her peace, he preferred the honour (or 
dishonour) of being the favourite of Lady Castlemaine, and 
Mrs. Hyde escaped the disgrace she, perhaps, merited. 

De Grammont appears absolutely to have hated Jermyn; 
not because he was immoral, impertinent, and contemptible, 
but because it was Jermyn's boast that no woman, good or bad, 
could resist him. Yet, in respect to their unprincipled life, 
Jermyn and De Grammont had much in common. The Che- 
valier was at this time an admirer of the foolish beauty, Jane 
Middleton ; one of the loveliest women of a court where it was 
impossible to turn without seeing loveliness. 

Mrs. Middleton was the daughter of Sir Roger Needham ; 
and she has been described, even by the grave Evelyn, as a 
'famous, and, indeed, incomparable beauty.* A coquette, she 
was, however, the friend of intellectual men ; and it was pro- 
bably at the house of St. Evremond that the Count first saw 
her. Her figure was good, she was fair and delicate ; and she 
had so great a desire, Count Hamilton relates, to ^ appear mag- 
nificently, that she was ambitious to vie with those of the great- 
est fortunes, though unable to support tlie expense.* 

Letters and presents now flew about. Perfumed gloves, 
pocket looking-glasses, elegant boxes, apricot paste, essences, 
and other small wares arrived weekly from Paris; English 
jewellery still had the preference, and was liberally bestowed ; 
yet Mrs. Middleton, affected and somewhat precise, accepted 
the gifts but did not seem to encourage the giver. 

The Count de Grammont, piqued, was beginning to turn his 
attention to Miss Warmistrc, one of the queen's maids of honour, 
a lively brunette, and a contrast to the languid Mrs. Middleton ; 
when, happily for him, a beauty appeared on the scene, and 
attracted him, by higher qualities than mere looks, to a real, 
fervent, and honourable attachment. 



J 2 Antho7iy Hamilton^ De Grammonfs Biographer. 

Amongst the few respected families of that period was that 
of Sir George Hamilton, the fourth son of James, Earl of Aber- 
corn, and of Mary, grand-daughter of Walter, eleventh Earl of 
Ormond. Sir George had distinguished himself during the 
Civil Wars : on the death of Charles I. he had retired to France, 
but returned, after the Restoration, to London, with a large 
family, all intelligent and beautiful. 

From their relationship to the Ormond family, the Hamil- 
tons were soon installed in the first circles of fashion. The 
Duke of Ormond's sons had been in exile with the king ; they 
now added to the lustre of the court after his return. The Earl 
of Arran, the second, was a beau of the true Cavalier order ; 
clever at games, more especially at tennis, the king's favourite 
diversion ; he touched the guitar well; and made love ad libi- 
turn. Lord Ossory, his elder brother, had less vivacity but 
more intellect, and possessed a liberal, honest nature, and an 
heroic character. 

All the good qualities of these two young noblemen seem to 
have been united in Anthony Hamilton, of whom De Gram- 
mont gives the following character : — * The elder of the Hamil- 
tons, their cousin, was the man who, of all the court, dressed 
best; he was well made in his person, and possessed those 
happy talents which lead to fortune, and procure success in 
love : he was a most assiduous courtier, had the most lively 
\yit, the most polished manners, and the most punctual atten- 
tion to his master imaginable ; no person danced better, nor 
was any one a more general lover — a merit of some account in 
a court entirely devoted to love and gallantry. It is not at all 
surprising that, with these qualities, he succeeded my Lord 
Falmouth in the king's favour.' 

The fascinating person thus described was bom in Ireland : 
he had already experienced some vicissitudes, which were re- 
newed at the Revolution of 1688, when he fled to France — the 
country in which he had spent his youth — and died at St. Ger- 
mains, in 1720, aged seventy-four. His poetry and his fairy 
tales are forgotten; but his 'Memoirs of the Count de Gram- 
mont' is a work which combines the vivacity of a French writer 
with the truth of an English historian. 



The Three Courts, 73 

Ormond Yard, St. James's Square, was the London residence 
of the Duke of Ormond: the garden wall of Ormond House 
took up the greater part of York Street : the Hamilton family 
had a commodious house in the same courtly neighbourhood ; 
and the cousins mingled continually. Here persons of the 
greatest distinction constantly met ; and here the ^ Chevalier de 
Grammont,' as he was still called, was received in a manner 
suitable to his rank and style ; and soon regretted that he had 
passed so much time in other places ; for, after he once knew 
the charming Hamiltons, he wished for no other friends. 

There were three courts at that time in the capital ; that at 
Whitehall, in the king's apartments; that in the queen's, in the 
same palace ; and that of Henrietta Maria, the Queen-Mother, 
as she was styled, at Somerset House. Charles's was pre-emi- 
nent in immorality, and in the daily outrage of all decency ; 
that of the unworthy widow of Charles I. was just bordering 
on impropriety; that of Katherine of Braganza was still de- 
corous, though not irreproachable. Pepys, in his Diary, has 
this passage : — * Visited Mrs. Ferrers, and stayed talking with 
her a good while, there being a little, proud, ugly, talking lady 
there, that was much crying up the queene-mother's court at 
Somerset House, above our queen's ; there being before her no 
allowance of laughing and mirth that is at the other's ; and, in- 
deed, it is observed that the greatest court now-a-days is there. 
Thence to Whitehall, where I carried my wife to see the queene 
in her presence-chamber ; and the maydes of honour and the 
young Duke of Monmouth, playing at cards.' 

Queen Katherine, notwithstanding that the first words she 
was ever known to say in English were ' You lie P was one of 
the gentlest of beings. Pepys describes her as having a modest, 
innocent look, among all the demireps with whom she was 
forced to associate. Again we turn to Pepys, an anecdote of 
whose is characteristic of poor Katherine's submissive, uncom- 
plaining nature : — 

* With Creed, to the King's Head ordinary ; . . . and a 
pretty gentleman in our company, who confirms my Lady 
Castlemaine's being gone from court, but knows not the reason ; 
he told us of one wipe the quccnc, a little while ago, did give 



74: '^^ belle Hamilton! 

her, when she came in and found the queene under the dresset's 
hands, and had been so long. " I wonder your Majesty," says 
she, " can have the patience to sit so long a-dressing ?"— " I 
have so much reason to use patience," says the queene, " that 
I can very well bear with it." ' 

It was in the court of this injured queen that De Grammont 
went one evening to Mrs. Middleton's house : there was a ball 
that night, and amongst the dancers was the loveliest creature 
that De Grammont had ever seen. His eyes were riveted on 
this fair form; he had heard, but never till then seen her, 
whom all the world consented to call 'La Belle Hamilton,' 
and his heart instantly echoed the expression. From this time 
he forgot Mrs. Middleton, and despised Miss Warmestre : ' he 
found,' he said, that he 'had seen nothing at court till this 
instant' 

^Miss Hamilton,' he himself tells us, 'was at the happy age 
when the charms of the fair sex begin to bloom ; she had the 
finest shape, the loveliest neck, and most beautiful arms in the 
world; she was majestic and graceful in all her movements; 
and she was the original after which all the ladies copied in 
their taste and air of dress. Her forehead was open, white, 
and smooth ; her hair was well set, and fell with ease into that 
natural order which it is so difficult to imitate. Her complexion 
was possessed of a certain freshness, not to be equalled by 
borrowed colours ; her eyes were not large, but they were lively, 
and capable of expressing whatever she pleased.' '* So far for 
her person ; but De Grammont was, it seems, weary of external 
charms : it was the intellectual superiority that riveted his feel- 
ings, whilst his connoisseurship in beauty was satisfied that he 
had never yet seen any one so perfect. 

* Her mind,' he says, ' was a proper companion for such a 
form : she did not endeavour to shine in conversation by those 
sprightly salHes which only puzzle, and with still greater care 
she avoided that affected solemnity in her discourses which 
produces stupidity ; but, without any eagerness to talk, she just 
said what she ought, and no more. She had an admirable 

* See De Grammont's Memoirs. 



I 



Sir Peter Lelys Portrait of Her, 75 

discernment in distinguishing between solid and false wit ; and 
far from making an ostentatious display of her abilities, she was 
reserved, though very just in her decisions. Her sentiments 
were always noble, and even lofty to the highest extent, when 
there was occasion; nevertheless, she was less prepossessed 
with her own merit than is usually the case with those who have 
so much. Formed as we have described, she could not fail of 
commanding love ; but so far was she from courting it, that she 
was scrupulously nice with respect to those whose merit might 
entitle them to form any pretensions to her.' 

Bom in 1641, Elizabeth — for such was the Christian name of 
this lovely and admirable woman — was scarcely in her twentieth 
year when she first appeared at Whitehall. Sir Peter Lely was 
at that time painting the Beauties of the Court, and had done 
full justice to the intellectual and yet innocent face that riveted 
De Grammont. He had depicted her with her rich dark hair, 
of which a tendril or two fell on her ivory forehead, adorned 
at the back Avith large pearls, under which a gauze-like tex- 
ture was gathered up, falling over the fair shoulders like a veil : 
a full corsage, bound by a light band either of ribbon or of gold 
lace, confining, with a large jewel or button, the sleeve on the 
shoulder, disguised somewhat the exquisite shape. A frill of 
fine cambric set off, whilst in whiteness it scarce rivalled, the 
shoulder and neck. 

The features of this exquisite face are accurately described by 
De Grammont, as Sir Peter has painted them. ^ The mouth 
does not smile, but seems ready to break out into a smile. 
Nothing is sleepy, but everything is soft, sweet, and innocent in 
that face so beautiful and so beloved.' 

Whilst the colours were fresh on Lely's palettes, James Duke 
of York, that profligate who aped the saint, saw it, and hence- 
forth paid his court to the original, but was repelled widi fear- 
less hauteur. The dissolute nobles of the court followed his 
example, even to the Mady-killcr' Jcrmyn, but in vain. Un- 
happily for La Belle Hamilton, she became sensible to the 
attractions of De Grammont, whom she eventually married. 

Miss Hamilton, intelligent as she was, lent herself to the 
fashion of the day, and delighted in practical jokes and tricks. 



T^ The Household Deity of Whitehall 

At the splendid masquerade given by the queen she continued 
to plague her cousin, Lady Muskerry ; to confuse and expose a 
stupid court beauty, a Miss Blaque ; and at the same time to 
produce on the Count de Grammont a still more powerful effect 
than even her charms had done. Her success in hoaxing — 
which we should now think both perilous and indelicate — seems 
to have only riveted the chain, which was drawn around him 
more strongly. 

His friend, or rather his foe, St. Evremond, tried in vain to 
discourage the Chevalier from his new passion. The former 
tutor was, it appeared, jealous of its influence, and hurt that 
De Grammont was now seldom at his house. 

De Grammont's answer to his remonstrances was very charac- 
teristic. 'My poor philosopher,* he cried, *you understand 
Latin well — you can make good verses — ^you are acquainted 
with the nature of the stars in the firmament — but you are 
wholly ignorant of the luminaries in the terrestrial globe.' 

He then announced his intention to persevere, notwithstand- 
ing all the obstacles which attached to the suit of a man with- 
out either fortune or character, who had been exiled from his 
own country, and whose chief mode of livelihood was dependent 
on the gaming-table. 

One can scarcely read of the infatuation of La Belle Hamil- 
ton without a sigh. During a period .of six years their mar- 
riage was in contemplation only; and De Grammont seems to 
have trifled inexcusably with the feelings of this once gay and 
ever lovely girl. It was not for want of means that De Grammont 
thus delayed the fulfilment of his engagement. Charles IL, 
inexcusably lavish, gave him a pension of 1500 Jacobuses: it 
was to be paid to him until he should be restored to the favour 
of his own king. The fact was that De Grammont contributed 
to the pleasures of the court, and pleasure was the household 
deity of Whitehall. Sometimes, in those days of careless gaiety, 
there were promenades in Spring Gardens, or the Mall ; some- 
times the court beauties sallied forth on horseback ; at other 
times there were shows on the river, which then washed the 
very foundations of Whitehall. There in the summer evenings, 
when it was too hot and dusty to walk, old Thames might be 



Who shall have the Calkhe ? yj 

seen covered with little boats, filled with court and city beau- 
ties, attending the royal barges ; collations, music, and fireworks 
completed the scene, and De Grammont always contrived some 
surprise — some gallant show : once a concert of vocal and in- 
strumental music, which he had privately brought firom Paris, 
struck up unexpectedly : another time a collation brought firom 
the gay capital surpassed that supplied by the king. Then the 
Chevalier, finding that coaches with glass windows, lately in- 
troduced, displeased the ladies, because their charms were only 
partially seen in them, sent for the most elegant and superb 
calkhe ever seen : it came after a month's journey, and was 
presented by De Grammont to the king. It was a royal present 
in price, for it had cost two thousand livres. The famous dis- 
pute between Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stuart, afterwards 
Duchess of Richmond, arose about this calkhe. The Queen 
and the Duchess of York appeared first in it in Hyde Park, 
which had then recently been fenced in with brick. Lady Cas- 
tlemaine thought that the calkhe showed off a fine figure better 
than the coach ; Miss Stuart was of the same opinion. Both 
these grown-up babies wished to have the coach on the same 
day, but Miss Stuart prevailed. 

The Queen condescended to laugh at the quarrels of these 
two foolish women, and complimented the Chevalier de 
Grammont on his present. * But how is it,' she asked, ' that 
you do not even keep a footman, and that one of the common 
runners in the street lights you home with a link ?' 

* Madame,' he answered, * the Chevalier de Grammont hates 
pomp : my link-boy is faithful and brave.' Then he told the 
Queen that he saw she was unacquainted with the nation of 
link-boys, and related how that he had, at one time, had one 
hundred and sixty around his chair at night, and people had 
asked ' whose funeral it was ? As for the parade of coaches 
and footmen,' he added, ' I despise it. I have sometimes had 
five or six valcts-de-chavibre, without a single footman in livery 
except my chaplain.' 

*How!' cried the Queen, laughing, *a chapkin in livery? 
surely he was not a priest.' 

^Pardon, Madame, a priest, and the l.^cst dancer in the world 
of the Biscayan gig.' 



y8 A Chaplain in Livery, 

* Chevalier/ said the king, ' tell us the history of your 
chaplain Poussatin.* 

Then De Grammout related how, when he was with the great 
Conde, after the campaign of Catalonia, he had seen among a 
company of Catalans, a priest in a little black jacket, skipping 
and frisking : how Conde was charmed, and how they recog- 
nized in him a Frenchman, and how he offered himself to De 
Grammont for his chaplain. De Grammont had not much 
need, he said, for a chaplain in his house, .but he took the 
priest, who had afterwards the honour of dancing before Anne 
of Austria, in Paris. 

Suitor after suitor interfered with De Grammonfs at last 
honourable address to La Belle Hamilton. At length an inci- 
dent occurred which had very nearly separated them for ever. 
Philibert de Grammont was recalled to Paris by Louis XIV. 
He forgot. Frenchman-like, all his engagements to Miss 
Hamilton, and hurried off. He had reached Dover, when her 
two brothers rode up after him. * Chevalier de Grammont,* 
they said, * have you forgotten nothing in London ?' 

^ I beg your pardon,' he answered, ' I forgot to marry your 
sister.' It is said that this story suggested to Moliere the idea 
of Le Mar iage force. They were, however, married. 

In 1669 La Belle Hamilton, after giving birth to a child, 
went to reside in France. Charles II., who thought she would 
pass for a handsome woman in France, recommended her to 
his sister, Henrietta Duchess of Orleans, and begged her to 
be kind to her. 

Henceforth the Chevalier De Grammont and his wife figured 
at Versailles, where the Countess de Grammont was appointed 
Dame du Palais, Her career was less brilliant than in England. 
The French ladies deemed her haughty and old, and even 
termed her une Anglaise insupportable. 

She had certainly too much virtue, and perhaps too much 
beauty still, for the Parisian ladies of fashion at that period to 
admire her. 

She endeavoured in vain, to reclaim her libertine husband, 
and to call him to a sense of his situation when he was on his 
death-bed. Louis XIV. sent the Marquis de Dangeau to con- 



De Grammonfs Last Hours. 79 

vert him, and to talk to Him on a subject little thought of by 
De Grammont — the world to come. After the Marquis had 
been talking for some time, De Grammont turned to his wife 
and said, * Countess, if you don't look to it, Dangeau will 
juggle you out of my conversion.' St. Evremond said he would 
gladly die to go off with so successful a bon-mot. 

He became however, in time, serious, if not devout or 
penitent. Ninon de I'Enclos having Avritten to St. Evremond 
that the Count de Grammont had not only recovered but had 
become devout, St. Evremond answered her in these words : — 
' I have learned with a great deal of pleasure that the Count 
de Grammont has recovered his former health, and acquired 
a new devotion. Hitherto I have been contented with being 
a plain honest man ; but I must do something more : and I 
only wait for your example to become a devotee. You live 
in a country where people have wonderful advantages of 
saving their souls : there, vice is almost as opposite to the 
mode as virtue ; sinning passes for ill-breeding, and shocks 
decency and good-manners, as much as religion. Formerly 
it was enough to be wicked, now one must be a scoundrel 
withal to be damned in France.' 

A report having been circulated that De Grammont was 
dead, St. Evremond expressed deep regret. The report was 
contradicted by Ninon de I'Enclos. The Chevalier was then 
eighty-six years of age ; ' nevertheless he was,' Ninon says, 
* so young, that I think him as lively as when he hated sick 
people, and loved them after they had recovered their health;' 
a trait very descriptive of a man whose good-nature was 
always on the surface, but whose selfishness was deep as that 
of most wits and beaux, who are spoiled by the world, and 
who, in return, distrust and deceive the spoilers. With this 
long life of eighty-six years, endowed as De Grammont was 
with elasticity of spirits, good fortune, considerable talent, an 
excellent position, a wit that never ceased to flow in a clear 
current ; with all these advantages, what might he not have 
been to society, had his energy been well applied, his wit 
innocent, his talents employed worlhily, and his heart as sura 
to stand muster as his manners ? 



BEAU FIELDING. 




On Wits and Beaux.— Scotland Yard in Charles II. 's day. — Orlando of 'The 
Tatler.' — Beau Fielding, Justice of the Peace. — ^Adonis in Search of a Wife. 
— ^I'he Sham Widow. — ^Ways and Means. — Barbara Villiers, Lady Castle- 
maine. — Quarrels with the King. — The Beau's Second Marriage. — ^The 
Last Days of Fops and Beaux. 

ET US be wise, boys, here's a fool coming, said a sen- 
sible man, when he saw Beau Nash's splendid car- 
riage draw up to the door. Is a beau a fool ? Is 
a sharper a fool ? Was Bonaparte a fool ? If you reply ^ no ' 
to the last two questions, you must give the same answer to the 
first. A beau is a fox, but not a fool — a very clever fellow, who, 
knowing the weakness of his brothers and sisters in the world, 
takes advantage of it to make himself a fame and a 
fortune. Nash, the son of a glass-merchant — Brummell, the 
hopeful of a small shopkeeper — became the intimates of 
princes, dukes, and fashionables; were petty kings of Vanity 
Fair, and were honoured by their subjects. In the kingdom of 
the blind, the one-eyed man is king ; in the realm of folly, the 
sharper is a monarch. The only proviso is, that the cheat 
come not within the jurisdiction of the law. Such a cheat 
is the beau or dandy, or fine gentleman, who imposes on his 
public by his clothes and appearance. Bond-Jide monarchs 
have done as much : Louis XIV. won himself the title of Le 
Grand Monarque by his manners, his dress, and his vanity. 
Fielding, Nash, and Brummell did nothing more. It is not a 
question whether such roads to eminence be contemptible or 
not, but whether their adoption in one station of life be more 
so than in another. Was Brummell a whit more contemptible 
than ^ Wales ?' Or is John Thomas, the pride and glory of the 
* Domestics' Free-and-Easy,' whose whiskers, figure, face, and 



On Wits and Beaux 8 1 

manner are all. superb, one atom more ridiculous than your 
recognized beau ? I trow not. What right, then, has your 
beau to a place among wits ? I fancy Chesterfield would be 
much disgusted at seeing his name side by side with that of 
Nash in this volume ; yet Chesterfield had no objection, when 
at Bath, to do homage to the king of that city, and may have 
prided himself on exchanging pinches from diamond-set snuff- 
boxes with that superb gold-laced dignitary in the Pump-room. 
Certainly, people who thought httle of Philip Dormer Stanhope, 
thought a great deal of the glass-merchant's reprobate son 
when he was in power, and submitted without a murmur to his 
impertinences. The fact is, that the beaux and the wits are 
more intimately connected than the latter would care to 
own : the wits have all been, or aspired to be, beaux, and beaux 
have had their fair share of wit ; both lived for the same pur- 
pose — to shine in society : both used the same means — coats 
and bon-mots. The only distinction is, that the garments of 
the beaux were better, and their sayings not so good as those 
of the wits ; while the conversation of the wits was better, and 
their apparel not so striking as those of the beaux. So, my 
Lord Chesterfield, who prided yourself quite as much on being 
a fine gentleman as on being a fine wit, you cannot complain 
at your proximity to Mr. Nash and others who were fine gentle- 
men, and would have been fine wits if they could. 

Robert Fielding was, perhaps, the least of the beaux ; but then, 
to make up for this, he belonged to a noble family : he married a 
duchess, and, what is more, he beat her. Surely in the kingdom 
of fools such a man is not to be despised. You may be sure he 
did not think he was, for was he not made the subject of two 
papers in ^ The Tatler,' and what more could such a man desire ? 

His father was a Suffolk squire, claiming relationship with 
the Pearls of Denbigh, and therefore, with the Hapsburgs, from 
whom the Beau and the Emperors of Austria had the common 
honour of being descended. Perhaps neither of them had suffi- 
cient sense to be proud of the greatest intellectual ornament of 
their race, the author of * Tom Jones ;' but as our hero was 
dead before the humourist was born, it is not fair to conjecture 
what he might have thought on the subject. 

6 



82 Scotland Yard in Charles II! s Day, 

It does not appear that very much is known of this great 
gem of the race of Hapsburg. He had the misfortune to be 
very handsome, and the folly to think that his face would be 
his fortune : it certainly stood him in good stead at times, but 
it also brought him into a lamentable dilemma. 

His father was not rich, and sent his son to the Temple to 
study laws which he was only fitted to break. The young 
Adonis had sense enough to see that destiny did not beckon 
him to fame in the gloom of a musty law court, and removed 
a little further up to the Thames, and the more fashionable 
region of Scotland Yard. Here, where now Z 300 repairs to 
report his investigations to a Commissioner, the young dandies 
of Charles II. 's day strutted in gay doublets, swore hasty oaths 
of choice invention, smoked the true Tobago from huge pipe- 
bowls, and ogled the fair but not too bashful dames who passed 
to and fro in their chariots. The court took its name from the 
royalties of Scotland, who, when they visited the South, were 
there lodged, as being conveniently near to Whitehall Palace. 
It is odd enough that the three architects, Inigo Jones, Van- 
brugh, and Wren, all lived in this yard. 

It was not to be supposed that a man who could so well ap- 
preciate a handsome face and well-cut doublet as Charles II. 
should long overlook his neighbour, Mr. Robert Fielding, and 
in due course the Beau, who had no other diploma, found him- 
self in the honourable position of a justice of the peace. 

The emoluments of this office enabled Orlando, as 'The 
Tatler ' calls him, to shine forth in all his glory. With an en- 
viable indifference to the future, he launched out into an 
expenditure which alone would have made him popular in a 
country where the heaviest purse makes the greatest gentleman. 
His lacqueys were arrayed in the brightest yellow coats with 
black sashes — the Hapsburg colours. He had a carriage, 01 
course, but, like Sheridan's, it was hired, though drawn by his 
own horses. This carriage was described as being shaped like 
a sea-shell ; and ' the Tatler ' calls it ' an open tumbril of less 
size than ordinary, to show the largeness of his limbs and the 
grandeur of his personage to the best advantage.' The said 
limbs were Fielding's especial pride : he gloried in the strength 



Orlando of ^ The Tatler* 83 

of his leg and arm ; and when he walked down the street, he 
was followed by an admiring crowd, whom he treated with as 
much haughtiness as if he had been the emperor himself, instead 
of his cousin five hundred times removed. He used his 
strength to good or bad purpose, and was a redoubted fighter 
and bully, though good-natured withal. In the Mall, as he 
strutted, he was the cynosure of all female eyes. His dress 
had all the elegance of which the graceful costume of that 
period was capable, though Fielding did not, like Brummell, 
understand the delicacy of a quiet, but studied style. Those 
were simpler, somewhat more honest days. It was not necessary 
for a man to cloak his vices, nor be ashamed of his cloak. The 
beau then-a-day openly and arrogantly gloried in the grandeur 
of his attire ; and bragging was a part of his character. Fielding 
was made by his tailor ; Brummell made his tailor : the only 
point in common to both was that neither of them paid the 
tailor's bill. 

The fine gentleman, under the Stuarts, was fine only in his 
lace and his velvet doublet ; his language was coarse, his man- 
ners coarser, his vices the coarsest of all. No wonder when the 
king himself could get so drunk with Sedley and Buckhurst as 
to be unable to give an audience appointed for ; and when the 
chief fun of his two companions was to divest themselves of all 
the habiliments which civiHzation has had the ill taste to make 
necessary, and in that state run about the streets. 

* Orlando' wore the finest ruffles and the heaviest sword; his 
wig was combed to perfection ; and in his pocket he carried a 
little comb with which to arrange it from time to time, even 
as the dandy of to-day pulls out his whiskers or curls his mous- 
tache. Such a man could not be passed over ; and accordingly 
he numbered half the officers and gallants of the town among 
his intimates. He drank, swore, and swaggered, and the snobs 
of the day proclaimed him a ' complete gentleman.' 

His impudence, however, was not always tolerated. In the 
playhouses of the day, it was the fashion for some of the spec- 
tators to stand upon the stage, and the places in that position 
were chiefly occupied by young gallants. The ladies came 
most in masques : but this did not prevent Master Fielding 

6—2 



84 Adonis in Search of a Wife. 

from making his remarks very freely, and in no very refined 
strain to them. The modest damsels, whom Pope has described, 

* The fair sat pouting at the courtier's play, 
And not a mask went unimproved away : 
The modest fan was hfted up no more, 
And virgins smiled at what they blushed before,* 

were not too coy to be pleased with the fops' attentions, and 
replied in like strain. The players were unheeded ; the audi- 
ence laughed at the improvised and natural wit, when carefully 
prepared dialogues failed to fix their attention. The actors were 
disgusted, and, in spite of Master Fielding's herculean strength, 
kicked him ofi" the stage, with a warning not to come again. 

The role of a beau is expensive to keep up ; and our justice 
of the peace could not, like Nash, double his income by gaming. 
He soon got deeply into debt, as every celebrated dresser has 
done. The old story, not new even in those days, was enacted 
and the brilliant Adonis had to keep watch and ward against 
tailors and bailiffs. On one occasion they had nearly caught 
him ; but his legs being lengthy, he gave them fair sport as far 
as St. James's Palace, where the officers on guard rushed out to 
save their pet, and drove off the myrmidons of the law at the 
point of the sword. 

But debts do not pay themselves, nor die, and Orlando with 
all his strength and prowess could not long keep off the con- 
stable. Evil days gloomed at no very great distance before 
him, and the fear of a sponging-house and debtors' prison com- 
pelled him to turn his handsome person to account. Had he 
not broken a hundred hearts already ? had he not charmed a 
thousand pairs of beaming eyes ? was there not one owner of 
one pair who was also possessed of a pretty fortune ? Who 
should have the honour of being the wife of such an Adonis? 
-who, indeed, but she who could pay highest for it ; and who 
could pay with a handsome income but a well-dowered widow ? 
A widow it must be — a widow it should be. Noble indeed was 
the sentiment which inspired this great man to sacrifice himself 
on the altar of Hymen for the good of his creditors. Ye young 
men in the Guards, who do this kind of thing ever}^ day — that 
is, every day that you can meet with a widow with the proper 




-< ■■', 

m 

w 

H 
ft 



.J 



The Sham Widow, 85 

qualifications — take warning by the lamentable history of Mr. 
Robert Fielding, and never trust to * third parties.' 

A widow was found, fat, fair, and forty — and oh ! — charm 
greater far than all the rest — with a fortune of sixty thousand 
pounds ; this was a Mrs. Deleau, who lived at Whaddon in 
Surrey, and at Copthall-court in London. Nothing could be 
more charming ; and the only obstacle was the absence of all 
acquaintance between the parties — for, of course, it was im- 
possible for any widow, whatever her attractions, to be insensible 
to those of Robert Fielding. Under these circumstances, the 
Beau looked about for an agent, and found one in the person 
of a Mrs. Villars, hairdresser to the widow. He offered this 
person a handsome douceur in case of success, and she was to 
undertake that the lady should meet the gentleman in the most 
unpremeditated manner. Various schemes were resorted to : 
with the alias ^ for he was not above an alias ^ of Major-General 
Villars, the Beau called at the widow's country house, and was 
permitted to see the gardens. At a window he espied a lady, 
whom he took to be the object of his pursuit — bowed to hef 
majestically, and went away, persuaded he must have made an 
impression. But, whether the widow was wiser than wearers of 
weeds have the reputation of being, or whether the agent had 
really no power in the matter, the meeting never came on. 

The hairdresser naturally grew anxious, the douceur was too 
good to be lost, and as the widow could not be had, some one 
must be supplied in her place. 

One day while the Beau was sitting in his splendid ' night- 
gown,' as the morning-dress of gentlemen was then called, two 
ladies were ushered into his august presence. He had been 
warned of this visit, and was prepared to receive the yielding 
widow. The one, of course, was the hairdresser, the other a 
young, pretty, and apparently modest creature, who blushed 
much — though with some difficulty — at the trying position in 
which she found herself. The Beau, delighted, did his best to 
reassure her. He flung himself at her feet, swore, with oaths 
more fashionable than delicate, that she was the only woman 
he ever loved, and prevailed on the widow so far as to induce 
her to * call again to-morrow.' 



86 • Ways and 3feans, 

Of course she came, and Adonis was in heaven. He wrote 
little poems to her — for, as a gallant, he could of course make 
verses — serenaded her through an Italian donna, invited her 
to suppers, at which the delicacies of the season were served 
without regard to the purveyor s account, and to which, coy as 
she was, she consented to come, and clenched the engagement 
with a ring, on which was the motto, * Tibi Soli.* Nay, the 
Beau had been educated, and had some knowledge of ' the 
tongues,* so that he added to these attentions, the further one 
of a song or two translated from the Greek. The widow ought 
to have been pleased, and was. One thing only she stipulated, 
namely, that the marriage should be private, lest her relations 
should forbid the banns. 

Having brought her so far, it was not likely that the fortune- 
hunter would stick at such a mere trifle, and accordingly an 
entertainment was got up at the Beau's own rooms, a supper 
suitable to the rank and wealth of the widow, provided by 
some obligingly credulous tradesman ; a priest found — ^for, be 
it premised, our hero had changed so much of his religion as 
he had to change in the reign of James II., when Romanism 
was not only fashionable, but a sure road to fortune — and the 
mutually satisfied couple swore to love, honour, and obey one 
another till death them should part. 

The next morning, however, the widow left the gentleman*s 
lodgings, on the pretext that it was injudicious for her friends 
to know of their union at present, and continued to visit her 
sposo and sup somewhat amply at his chambers from time to 
time. We can imagine the anxiety Orlando now felt for a cheque 
book at the heiress's bankers, and the many insinuations he 
may have delicately made, touching ways and means. We can 
fancy the artful excuses with which these hints were put aside 
. by his attached wife. But the dupe was still in happy ignorance 
of the trick played on him, and for a time such ignorance 
was bliss. It must have been trying to him to be called on 
by Mrs. Villars for the promised douceur, but he consoled 
himself with the pleasures of hope. 

Unfortunately; however, he had formed the acquaintance of a 



Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlanaine, 87 

woman of a very different reputation to the real Mrs. Deleau, 
and the intimacy which ensued was fatal to him. 

When Charles II. was wandering abroad, he was joined, 
among others, by a Mr. and Mrs. Palmer. The husband was a 
stanch old Romanist, with the qualities which usually accom- 
panied that faith in those days — little respect for morality, and 
a good deal of bigotry. In later days he was one of the vic- 
tims suspected of the Titus Gates plot, but escaped, and even- 
tually died in Wales, in 1705, after having been James II.^s 
ambassador to Rome. This^ in a few words, is the history of 
that Roger Palmer, afterwards Lord Castlemaine, who by some 
is said to have sold his wife — not at Smithfield, but at White- 
hall — to his Majesty King Charles II., for the sum of one 
peerage — an Irish one, taken on consideration : by others, is 
alleged to have been so indignant with the king as to have re- 
mained for some time far from court ; and so disgusted with 
his elevation to the peerage as scarcely to assume his title; and 
this last is the most authenticated version of the matter. 

Mrs. Palmer belonged to one of the oldest families in 
England, and traced her descent to Pagan de Villiers, in the 
days of William Rufus, and a good deal farther among the 
nobles of Normandy. She was the daughter of William, second 
Viscount Grandison, and rejoiced in the appropriate name of 
Barbara, for she could be savage occasionally. She was very 
beautiful, and very wicked, and soon became Charles's mistresf]. 
On the Restoration she joined the king in England, and when 
the poor neglected queen came over was foisted upon her as a 
bedchamber- woman, in spite of all the objections of that ill- 
used wife. It was necessary to this end that she should be the 
wife of a peer ; and her husband accepted the tide of Earl 
of Castlemaine, well knowing to what he owed it. Pepys, who 
admired Lady Castlemaine more than any woman in England. 
describes the husband and wife meeting at Whitehall with a 
cold ceremonial bow : yet the husband 7uas there. A quarrel 
between the two, strangely enough on the score of religion, her 
ladyship insisting that her child should be christened by a Pro- 
testant clergyman, while his lordship insisted on the ceremony 
being performed by a Romish priest, brought about a separa- 



88 Quarrels with the King. 

tion, and from that time Lady Castlemaine, lodged in White- 
hall, began her empire over the king of England. That man, 
* who never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one/ was 
the slave of this imperious and most impudent of women. She 
forced him to settle on her an immense fortune, much of which 
she squandered at the basset-table, often staking a thousand 
pounds at a time, and sometimes losing fifteen thousand pounds 
a-night. 

Nor did her wickedness end here. We have some pity for 
one, who, like La Valliere, could be attracted by the attentions 
of a handsome, fascinating prince : we pity though we blame. 
But Lady Castlemaine was vicious to the very marrow : not 
content with a king's favour, she courted herself the young 
gallant of the town. Quarrels ensued between Charles and his 
mistress, in which the latter invariably came off victorious, 
owing to her indomitable temper ; and the scenes recorded by 
De Grammont — when she threatened to burn down Whitehall, 
and tear her children in pieces — are too disgraceful for inser- 
tion. She forced the reprobate monarch to consent to all her 
extortionate demands : rifled the nation's pockets as well as his 
own ; and at every fresh difference, forced Charles to give her 
some new pension. An intrigue with Jermyn, discovered and 
objected to by the King, brought on a fresh and more serious 
difference, which was only patched up by a patent of the 
Duchy of Cleveland. The Duchess of Cleveland was even 
worse than the Countess of Castlemaine. Abandoned in time 
by Charles, and detested by all people of any decent feeling, 
she consoled herself for the loss of a real king by taking up 
with a stage one. Hart and Goodman, the actors, were suc- 
cessively her cavalieri ; the former had been a captain in the 
army ; the latter a student at Cambridge. Both were men of 
the coarsest minds and most depraved lives. Goodman, in 
after-years was so reduced that, finding, as Sheridan advised 
his son to do, a pair of pistols handy, a horse saddled, and 
Hounslow Heath not a hundred miles distance, he took to the 
pleasant and profitable pastime of which Dick Turpin is the 
patron saint. He was all but hanged for his daring robberies, 
but unfortunately not quite so. He lived to suffer such indi- 



Tlie Bcaiis Second Marriage, 89 

gence, that he and another rascal had but one under-garment 
between them, and entered into a compact that one should lie 
in bed while the other wore the article in question. Naturally 
enough the two fell out in time, and the end of Goodman — 
sad misnomer — ^was w^orse than his' beginning : ^such was the 
gallant whom the imperious Duchess of Cleveland vouchsafed 
to honour. 

The life of the once beautiful Barbara Villiers grew daily 
more and more depraved : at the age of thirty she retired to 
Paris, shunned and disgraced. After numerous intrigues abroad 
and at home, she put the crowning point to her follies by fall- 
ing in love with the handsome Fielding, when she herself num- 
bered sixty five summers. 

Whether the Beau still thought of fortune, or whether having 
once tried matrimony, he was so enchanted with it as to make 
it his cacoethes, does not appear : the legend explains not for 
what reason he married the antiquated beauty only three 
weeks after he had been united to the supposed widow. For 
a time he wavered between the two, but that time was short : 
the widow discovered his second marriage, claimed him, and 
in so doing revealed the well-kept secret that she was not a 
widow ; indeed, not even the relict of John Deleau, Esq., of 
Whaddon, but a wretched adventurer of the name of Mary 
Wadsworth, who had shared with Mrs. Villars the plunder of 
the trick. The Beau tried to preserve his dignity, and throw 
over his duper, but in vain. The first wife reported the state 
of affairs to the second ; and the duchess, who had been 
shamefully treated by Master Fielding, was only too glad ot 
an opportunity to get rid of him. She ofi"ered Mary Wads- 
worth a pension of ^100 a year, and a sum of ^^200 in ready 
money, to prove the previous marriage. The case came on, 
and Beau Fielding had the honour of playing a part in a 
famous state trial. 

With his usual impudence he undertook to defend himself 
at the Old Bailey, and hatched up some old story to prove that 
the first wife was married at the time of their union to one 
Brady ; but the plea fell to the ground, and the fine gentleman 
'"IS sentenced to be burned in the hand. His interest in cer- 



90 The Last Days of Fops and Beaux. 

tain quarters saved him this ignominious punishment which 
would, doubtless, have spoiled a limb of which he was particu- 
larly proud. He was pardoned : the real widow married a far 
more honourable gentleman, in spite of the unenviable noto- 
riety she had acquired ; the sham one was somehow quieted, 
and the duchess died some four years later, the more peacefully 
for being rid of her tyrannical mate. 

Thus ended a petty scandal of the day, in which all the 
parties were so disreputable that no one could feel any sym- 
pathy for a single one of them. How the dupe himself ended 
is not known. The last days of fops and beaux are never glo- 
rious. Brummell died in slovenly penury ; Nash in contempt. 
Fielding lapsed into the dimmest obscurity; and as far as 
evidence goes, there is as little certainty about his death as of 
that of the Wandering Jew. Let us hope that he is not still 
alive : though his friends seemed to have cared little whether 
he were so or not, to judge from a couple of verses written by 
: one of them : — 

* If Fielding is dead, 

And rests under this stone, 
Then he is not ahve 

You may bet two to one. 

• But if he's ahve, 

And does not he there — 
Let him hve till he's hanged, 
For which no man will care.* 




ii 



OF CERTAIN CLUBS AND CLUB-WITS UNDER 

ANNE. 



The Origin of Clubs. — The Establishment of Coffee-houses. — ^The October Club. 
—The Beef-steak Club.— Of certain other Clubs.— The Kit-kat Club.— The 
Romance of the Bowl.^The Toasts of the Kit-kat. — The Members of the 
Kit-kat.— A good Wit, and a bad Architect. — ' Well-natured Garth.' — ^The 
Poets of the Kit-kat. — Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax. — Chancellor 
Somers. — Charles Sackville, Lord Dorset. — Less celebrated Wits. 




SUPPOSE that, long before the building of Babel, 
man discovered that he was an associative animal, 
with the universal motto, ^L union ^ est la force ;'' and 
that association, to be of any use, requires talk. A history oi 
celebrated associations, from the building society just mentioned 
down to the thousands which are represented by an office, a 
secretary, and a brass-plate, in the present day, would give a 
curious scheme of the natural tendencies of man ; while the 
story of their failures — and how many have not failed, sooner 
or later ! — would be a pretty moral lesson to your anthropo- 
laters who Babelize now-a-days, and believe there is nothing 
which a company with capital cannot achieve. I wonder what 
object there is, that two men can possibly agree in desiring, 
and which it takes more than one to attain, for which an asso- 
ciation of some kind has not been formed at some time or 
other, since first the swarthy savage learned that it was neces- 
sary to unite to kill the lion which infested the neighbourhood! 
Alack for human nature ! I fear by far the larger proportion 
of the objects of associations would be found rather evil than 
good, and, certes, nearly all of them might be ranged under 
two heads, according a^i the passions of hate or desire found 
a common object in several hearts. Gain on the one hand — 



92 The Origin of Clubs. 

destruction on the other — ^have been the chief motives of club- 
bing in all time. 

A delightful exception is to be found, though — to wit, in 
associations for the purpose of talking. I do not refer to par- 
liaments and philosophical academies, but to those companies 
which have been formed for the sole purpose of mutual enter- 
tainment by interchange of thought. 

Now, will any kind reader oblige me with a derivation of the 
word ^ Club ?' I doubt if it is easy to discover. But one thing 
is certain, whatever its origin, it is, in its present sense, purely 
English in idea and in existence. Dean Trench points this out, 
and, noting the fact that no other nation (he might have ex- 
cepted the Chinese) has any word to express this kind of asso- 
ciation, he has, with very pardonable natural pride, but unpar- 
donably bad logic, inferred that the English are the most 
sociable people in the world. The contrary is true ; nay, was 
true, even in the days of Addison, Swift, Steele — even in the 
days of Johnson, Walpole, Selwyn ; ay, at all time since we 
have been a nation. The fact is, we are not the most sociable, 
but the most associative race ; and the establishment of clubs 
is a proof of it. We cannot, and never could, talk freely, com- 
fortably, and generally, without a company for talking. Con- 
versation has always been with us as much a business as rail- 
road-making, or what not. It has always demanded certain 
accessories, certain condiments, certain stimulants to work it 
up to the proper pitch. * We all know' we are the cleverest 
and wittiest people under the sun ; but then our wit has been 
stereotyped. France has no ' Joe Miller ;' for a bon-mot there, 
however good, is only appreciated historically. Our wit is 
printed, not spoken ; our best wits behind an inkhorn have 
sometimes been the veriest logs in society. On the Continent 
clubs were not called for, because society Itself was the arena 
of conversation. In this country, on the other hand, a man 
could only chat when at his ease ; could only be at his ease 
among those who agreed with him on the main points of reli- 
gion and politics, and even then wanted the aid of a bottle 
to make him comfortable. Our want of sociability was the 



i TJie Establishment of Coffee-Honses. 93 

cause of our clubbing, and therefore the word ^club' is purely 
English. ^ ^ 

This was never so much the case as after the Restoration. 
Religion and politics never ran higher than when a monarch, 
who is said to have died a papist because he had no religion at 
all during his life, was brought back to supplant a furious puri- 
tanical Protectorate. Then, indeed, it was difficult for men of 
opposite parties to meet without bickering; and society de- 
manded separate meeting-places for those who differed. The 
origin of clubs in this country is to be traced to two causes— 
the vehemence of religious and political partisanship, and the 
establishment of coffee-houses. These certainly gave the first 
idea of clubbery. The taverns which preceded them had given 
the English a zest for public life in a small way. ' The Mer- 
maid' was, virtually, a club of wits long before the first real 
club was opened, and, like the clubs of the eighteenth century, 
It had its presiding geniuses in Shakespeare and Rare Ben. 

The coffee-houses introduced somewhat more refinement and 
less exclusiveness. The oldest of these was the 'Grecian.^ 
' One Constantine, a Grecian,' advertised in ' The Intelligencer' 
of January 23rd, 1664-5, that ^the right coffee bery or choco- 
late,' might be had of him ' as cheap and as good as is anywhere 
to be had for money,' and soon after began to sell the said 
' coffee bery' in small cups at his own establishment in Deve- 
reux Court, Strand. Some two years later we have news of 
' Will's,' the most famous, perhaps, of the coffee-houses. Here 
Dryden held forth with pedantic vanity : and here was laid the 
first germ of that critical acumen which has since become a dis- 
tinguishing feature in English literature. Then, in the City, one 
Garraway, of Exchange Alley, first sold ^tea in leaf and drink, 
made according to the directions of the most knowing, and tra- 
vellers into those eastern countries;' and thus established the 
well-known ' Garraway's,' whither, in Defoe's day, ^foreign ban- 
quiers' and even ministers resorted, to drink the said beverage. 
* Robin's,' Jonathan's,' and many anotlier, were all opened 
about this time, and the rage for coffee-house life became general 
throughout the country. 

In these places the company was of course of all classes and 



94 ^'^^ October Club, 

colours ; but, as the cpnversation was general, there was na- 
turally at first a good deal of squabbling, till, for the sake of peace 
and comfort, a man chose his place of resort according to his 
political principles ; and a little later there were regular Whig and 
Tory coffee-houses. Thus, in Anne's day, ' The Cocoa-nut,* in 
S*t. James's Street, was reserved for Jacobites, while none but 
Whigs frequented ^ The St. James's.' Still there was not suffi- 
cient exclusiveness ; and as early as in Charles II.'s reign men 
of peculiar opinions began to appropriate certain coffee-houses 
at certain hours, and to exclude from them all but approved 
members. Hence the origin of clubs. 

The October Club was one of the earliest, being composed 
of some hundred and fifty rank Tories, chiefly country members 
of Parliament. They met at the * Bell,' in King Street, West- 
minster, that street in which Spenser starved, and Dryden's bro- 
ther kept a grocer's shop. A portrait of Queen Anne, by Dahl, 
hung in the club-room. This and the Kit-kat, the great Whig 
club, were chiefly reserved for politics ; but the fashion of 
clubbing having once come in, it was soon followed by people 
of all fancies. No reader of the ' Spectator' can fail to remem- 
ber the ridicule to which this was turned by descriptions of 
imaginary clubs for which the qualifications were absurd, and of 
which the business, on meeting, was preposterous nonsense of 
some kind. The idea of such fraternities, as the Club of Fat 
Men, the Ugly Club, the Sheromp Club, the Everlasting Club, 
the Sighing Club, the Amorous Club, and others, could only 
have been suggested by real clubs almost as ridiculous. The 
names, too, were almost as fantastical as those of the taverns 
in the previous century, which counted ' The Devil,* and * The 
Heaven and Hell,' among their numbers. Many derived their 
titles from the standing dishes preferred at supper, the Beef- 
steak and the Kit-kat (a sort of mutton-pie), for instance. 

The Beef-steak Club, still in existence, was one of the most 
famous established in Anne's reign. It had at that time less of 
a political than a jovial character. Nothing but that excellent 
British fare, from which it took its name, was, at first, served at 
the supper-table. It was an assemblage of wits of every sta- 
tion, and very jovial were they supposed to be when the juicy 



The Beef' Steak Club, ge 

dish had been discussed. Early in the century, Estcourt, the 
actor, was made provider to this club, and wore a golden grid- 
iron as a badge of office, and is thus alluded to in Dr. King's 
* Art of Cookery' (1709) : — 

* He that of honour, wit, and mirth partakes, 

May be a fit companion o'er beef-stakes ; ^ 

His name may be to future times enrolled 
In Estcourt's book, whose gridiron's framed of gold.* 

Estcourt was one of the best mimics of the day, and a keen 
satirist to boot ; in fact he seems to have owed much of his 
success on the stage to his power of imitation, for while his own 
manner was inferior, he could at pleasure copy exactly that of 
any celebrated actor. He imidd be a player. At fifteen he 
ran away from home, and joining a strolling company, acted 
Roxana in woman's clothes : his friends pursued him, and, 
changing his dress for that of a girl of the time, he tried to 
escape them, but in vain. The histrionic youth was captured, 
and bound apprentice in London town ; the ' seven long years' 
of which did not cure him of the itch for acting. But he was 
too good a wit for the stage, and amused himself, though not 
always his audience, by interspersing his part with his own re- 
marks. The great took him by the hand, and old Marlborough \/ 
especially patronized him : he wrote a burlesque of the Italian 
operas then beginning to be in vogue; and died in 1712-13. 
Estcourt was not the only actor belonging to the Beef-steak, nor 
even the only one who had concealed his sex under emergency; 
Peg Woffington, who had made as good a boy as he had done 
a girl, was afterwards a member of this club. 

In later years the beef-steak was cooked in a room at the top 
of Covent Garden Theatre, and counted many a celebrated wit 
among those who sat around its cheery dish. Wilkes the 
blasphemer, Churchill, and Lord Sandwich, were all members. 
of it at the same time. Of the last, Walpole gives us informa- 
tion in 1763 at the time of Wilkes's duel with Martin in Hyde 
Park. He tells us that at the Beef-steak Club Lord Sandwich 
talked so profusely, ' that he drove harlequins out of the com- 
pany.' To the honour of the club be it added, that his lord- 
ship was driven out after the harlequins, and finally expelled : 



96 The Kit-Kat Club, 

It is sincerely to be hoped that Wilkes was sent after his lord- 
ship. This club is now represented by one held behind the 
Lyceum, with the thoroughly British motto, ' Beef and Liberty :' 
the name was happily chosen and therefore imitated. In the 
reign of George 11. we meet with a ^ Rump-steak, or Liberty 
Club ;' and somehow steaks and liberty seem to be the two 
ideas most intimately associated in the Britannic mind. Can 
any one explain it ? 

Other clubs there were under Anne, — apolitical, critical, and 
hilarious — ^but the palm is undoubtedly carried off by the glori- 
ous Kit-kat. 

It is not every eating-house that is immortalized by a Pope, 
though Tennyson has sung ^ The Cock' with its * plump head- 
waiter,' who, by the way, was mightily offended by the Lau- 
reate's verses — or pretended to be so — and thought it ^ a great 
liberty of Mr. , Mr. , what is his name? to put re- 
spectable private characters into his books.' Pope, or some say 
Arbuthnot, explained the etymology of this club's extraordinary 
title :— 

' Whence deathless Kit-kat took its name, 

Few critics can unriddle : 
Some say from pastrycook it came, 
And some from Cat and Fiddle. 

* From no trim beaux its name it boasts, 

Grey statesmen or green wits ; 
But from the pell-mell pack of toasts 
Of old cats and young kits. ' 

Probably enough the title was hit on a hap-hazard, and re- 
tained because it was singular, but as it has given^ a poet a 
theme, and a painter a name for pictures of a peculiar size, its 
etymology has become important. Some say that the pastry- 
cook in Shire Lane, at whose house it was held, was named 
Christopher Katt. Some one or other was certainly celebrated 
for the manufacture of that forgotten delicacy, a mutton-pie, 
which acquired the name of a Kit-kat. 

'A Kit-kat is a supper for a lord,* 

says a comedy of 1700, and certes it afforded at this club eve- 
ning nourishment for many a celebrated noble profligate of the 
day. The supposed sign of the Cat and Fiddle (Kitt), gave 



The Romance of the Bowl, 97 

another solution, but after all, Pope's may be satisfactorily re- 
ceived. 

The Kit-kat was, par excelkfice, the Whig Club of Queen 
Anne's time : it was established at the beginning of the eigh- ' 
teenth century, and was then composed of thirty-nine members, 
among whom were the Dukes of Marlborough, Devonshire, 
Grafton, Richmond, and Somerset. In later days it numbered 
the greatest wits of the age, of whom anon. 

This club was celebrated more than any for its toasts, J 

Now, if men must drink — and sure the vine was given us for 
use, I do not say for abuse — they had better make it an occa- 
sion of friendly intercourse ; nothing can be more degraded 
than the solitary sanctimonious toping in which certain of our 
northern brethren are known to indulge. They had better give 
to the quaffing of that rich gift, sent to be a medicine for the 
mind, to raise us above the perpetual contemplation of worldly 
ills, as much of romance and elegance as possible. It is the 
opener of the heart, the awakener of nobler feelings of gene- 
rosity and love, the banisher of all that is narrow, and sordid, 
and selfish ; the herald of all that is exalted in man. No won- 
der that the Greeks made a god of Bacchus, that the Hindu 
worshipped the mellow Soma, and that there has been scarce a 
poet who has not sung its praise. There was some beauty in 
the feasts of the Greeks, when the goblet was really wreathed 
with flowers ; and even the German student, dirty and drunken 
as he may be, removes half the stain from his orgies with the 
rich harmony of his songs, and the hearty good-fellowship of 
his toasts. We drink still, perhaps we shall always drink till the 
end of time, but all the romance of the bowl is gone ; the last 
trace of its beauty went with the frigid abandonment of the 
toast. 

There was some excuse for wine when it brought out that 
now forgotten expression of good-will. Many a feud was re- 
conciled in the clinking of glasses ; just as many another was 
begun when the cup was drained too deeply. The first quarter 
of the last century saw the end of all the social glories of the ^ 
wassail in this country, and though men drank as much fifty 
years later, all its jioctry and romance had then disappeared. 

7 



gS The Toasts of the Kit-kat, 

It was still, however, the custom at that period to call on the 
name of some fair maiden, and sing her praises over the cup as 
it passed. It was a point of honour for all the company to join 
the health. Some beauties became celebrated for the number 
of their toasts ; some even standing toasts among certain sets. 

^ In the Kit-kat Club the custom was carried out by rule, and 
every member was compelled to name a beauty, whose claims 
to the honour w.ere then discussed, and if her name was ap- 
proved, a separate bowl was consecrated to her, and verses to 

* her honour engraved on it. Some of the most celebrated toasts 
had even their portraits hung in the club-room, and it was no 
slight distinction to be the favourite of the Kit-kat. When 
only eight years old. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu enjoyed this 
privilege. Her father, the Lord Dorchester, afterwards Evelyn, 
Duke of Kingston, in a fit of caprice, proposed 'the prett}^ 
little child' as his toast. The other members, who had never 
seen her, objected ; the Peer sent for her, and there could no 
longer be any question. The forward little girl was handed 
from knee to knee, petted, probably, by Addison, Congreve, 
Vanbrugh, Garth, and many another famous wit. Another 
celebrated toast of the Kit-kat, mentioned by Walpole, was. 
Lady Molyneux, who, he says, died smoking a pipe. 

This club was no less celebrated for its portraits than for the 
ladies it honoured. They, the portraits, were all painted by 
Kneller, and all of one size, which thence got the name of 
Kit-kat ; they were hung round the club-room. Jacob Tonson, 
the publisher, was secretary to the club. 

Defoe tells us the Kit-kat held the first rank among the clubs 
of the early part of the last century, and certainly the names of 
its members comprise as many wits as we could expect to find 
collected in one society. 

Addison must have been past forty when he became a mem- 
ber of the Kit-kat. His 'Cato' had won him the general ap- 
plause pf the Whig party, who could not allow so fine a writer 
to slip from among them. He had long, too, played the cour- 
tier, and was ' quite a gentleman.' A place among the exclu- 
sives of the Kit-kat was only the just reward of such attain- 
mentS; and he had it. I shall not be asked to give a notice of 



The Members of the Kit-kat. 99 

a man so universally known, and one who ranks rather with 
the humorists than the wits. It will suffice to say, that it was 
not till after the publication of the ' Spectator,' and some time 
after, that he joined our society. 

Congreve I have chosen out of this set for a separate life, 
for this man happens to present a very average sample of all 
their peculiarities. Congreve was a literary man, a poet, a wit, 
a beau, and — what unhappily is quite as much to the purpose 
— a profligate. The only point he, therefore, wanted in com- 
mon with most of the members, was a title ; but fev/ of the 
titled members combined as many good and bad qualities of 
the Kit-kat kind as did William Congreve. 

Another dramatist, whose name seems to be inseparable 
from Congreve's, was that mixture of bad and good taste — 
Vanbnigh. The author of ^ The Relapse,' the most licentious 
play ever acted ; — the builder of Blenheim, the ugliest house 
ever erected, was a man of good family, and Walpole counts 
him among those who ' ^vrote genteel comedy, because they 
lived in the best company.' We doubt the logic of this ; but 
if it hold, how is it that Van wrote plays which the best com- 
pany, even at that age, condemned, and neither good nor bad 
company can read in the present day without being shocked ? 
If the conversation of the Kit-kat was anything like that in this 
member's comedies, it must have been highly edifying. How- 
ever, I have no doubt Vanbrugh passed for a gentleman, what- 
ever his conversation, and he was certainly a wit, and appa- 
rently somewhat less licentious in his morals than the rest. 
Yet what Pope said of his literature may be said, too, of some 
acts of his life : — 

' How Van wants grace, wlio never wanted wit.' 

And his quarrel with 'Queen Sarah' of Marlborougli, though 
the duchess was by no means the most agreeable woman in tlie 
world to deal with, is not much to Van's honour. When the 
nation voted half a million to build that hideous mass of stone, 
the irregular and unsightly piHng of which caused Walpole to 
say that the architect * had emptied quarries, rather than built 
houses/ and Dr. Evans to write this epitaph for the builder — 



100 A Good Wit and a Bad Architect 

' Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he 
Laid many a heavy load on thee, ' 

Sarah haggled over ' seven-pence halfpenny a bushel ;' Van 
retorted by calling her 'stupid and troublesome/ and 'that 
wicked woman of Marlborough/ and after the Duke's death, 
wrote that the Duke had left her 'twelve thousand pounds 
a-year to keep herself clean and go to law.' Whether she 
employed any portion of it on the former object we do not 
pretend to say, but she certainly spent as much as a miser could 
on litigation, Van himself being one of the unfortunates she 
attacked in this way. 

The events of Vanbrugh's life were varied. He began life in 
the army, but in 1697 gave the stage 'The Relapse.' It was 
sufficiently successful to induce him to follow it up with the 
' Provoked Wife,' one of the wittiest pieces produced in those 
days. Charles, Earl of Carlisle, Deputy Earl Marshal, for 
whom he built Castle Howard, made him Clarencieux King-at- 
arms in 1704, and he was knighted by George L, 9th of Sep- 
tember, 1 7 14. In 1705 he joined Congreve in the manage- 
ment of the Haymarket, which he himself built. George I. 
made him Comptroller-general of the royal works. He had 
even an experience of the Bastille, where he was confined for 
sketching fortifications in France. He died in 1726, with the 
reputation of a good wit, and a bad architect. His conversa- 
tion was, certainly, as light as his buildings were heavy. 

Another member, almost as well known in his day, was Sir 
Samuel Garth, the physician, 'well-natured Garth,' as Pope 
called him. He won his fame by his satire on the apothecaries 
in the shape of a poem called ' The Dispensary.' When de- 
livering the funeral oration over Dryden's body, which had 
been so long unburied that its odour began to be disagreeable, 
he mounted a tub, the top of which fell through and left the 
doctor in rather an awkward position. He gained admission 
to the Kit-kat in consequence of a vehement eulogy on King 
William which he had introduced into his Harveian oration in 
1697.'''^ It was Garth, too, who extemporized most of the 

* The Kit-kat club was not founded till 1703. 



i 



^Well-natured GartJu lOI 

verses which were inscribed on the toasting-glasses of their 
club, so that he may, par excellence^ be considered the Kit-kat 
poet. He was the physician and friend of Marlborough, with 
whose sword he was knighted by George I., who made him his 
physician in ordinary. Garth was a very jovial man, and, some 
say, not a very religious one. Pope said he was as good a 
Christian as ever lived, ' without knowing it.' He certainly 
had no affectation of piety, and if charitable and good-natured 
acts could take a man to heaven, he deserved to go there. 
He had his doubts about faith, and is said to have died a 
Romanist. This he did in 17 19, and the poor and the Kit-kat 
must both have felt his loss. He was perhaps more of a wit 
than a poet, although he has been classed at times with Gray 
and Prior ; he can scarcely take the same rank as other verse- 
making doctors, such as iVkenside, Danvin, and Armstrong. 
He seems to have been an active, healthy man — perhaps too 
much so for a poet — for it is on record that he ran a match in 
the Mall with the Duke of Grafton, and beat him. He was 
fond, too, of a hard frost, and had a regular speech to intro- 
duce on that subject : 'Yes, sir, Yore Gad, very fine weather, 
sir — very wholesome weather, sir — kills trees, sir — very good 
for man, sir.' 

Old Marlborough had another intimate friend at the club, 
who was probably one of its earliest members. This was Arthur 
Maynwaring, a poet, too, in a way, but more celebrated at this 
time for his liaison with I\Irs. Oldfield, the famous but dis- 
reputable actress, with whom he fell in love when he was forty 
years old, and whom he instructed in the niceties of elocution, 
making her rehearse her parts to him in private. Maynwaring 
was born in 1668, educated at Oxford, and destined for the 
bar, for which he studied. He began life as a vehement Jaco- 
bite, and even supported that party in sundry pieces ; but like 
some others, he was easily converted, when, on coming to town, 
he found it more fashionable to be a Whig. He held two or 
three posts under the Government, whose cause he now es- 
poused : had the honour of the dedication of 'The Taller' to 
him by Steele, and died suddenly in 17 12. He divided his 
fortune between his sister and his mistress, Mrs. Oldfield, and 



102 The Poets of the Kit-kat, 

his son by the latter. Mrs. Oldfield must have grown rich in 
her sinful career, for .she could afford, when ill, to refuse to 
take her salary from the theatre, though entitled to it. She 
acted best in Vanbrugh's ' Provoked Husband,' so well, in fact, 
that the manager gave her an extra fifty pounds by way of 
acknowledgment. 

Poetising seems to have been as much a polite accomplish- 
ment of that age as letter- writing was of a later, and a smatter- 
ing of science is of the present day. Gentlemen tried to be 
poets, and poets gentlemen. The consequence was, that both 
made fools of themselves. Among the poetasters who belonged 
to the Kit-kat, we must mention Walsh, a country gentleman, 
member of Parliament, and very tolerable scholar. He dabbled 
in odes, elegies, epitaphs, and all that small fry of the muse 
which was then so plentiful. He wrote critical essays on Virgil, 
in which he tried to make out that the shepherds in the days 
* of the Roman poet were very well-bred gentlemen of good 
education ! He was a devoted admirer and friend of Dryden, 
and he encouraged Pope in his earlier career so kindly that the 
little viper actually praised him ! Walsh died somewhere about 
1709 in middle life. 

We have not nearly done with the poets of the Kit-kat. A 
still smaller one than Walsh was Stepney, who, like Garth, had 
begun life as a violent Tory and turned coat when he found 
his interest lay the other way. He was well repaid, for from 
1692 to 1706 he was sent on no less than eight diplomatic 
missions, chiefly to German courts. He owed this preferment 
to the good luck of having been a schoolfellow of Charles Mon- 
tagu, afterwards Earl of Halifax. He died about 1707, and 
had as grand a monument and epitaph in Westminster Abbey 
as if he had been a Milton or Dryden. 

When you meet a dog trotting along the road, you naturally 
expect that his master is not far off. In the same way, where 
you find a poet, still more a poetaster, there you may feel cer- 
tain you will light upon a patron. The Kit-kat was made up 
of Maecenases and their humble servants ; and in the same 
club with Addison, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and the minor poets, 



Chancellor Somers. 103 

we are not at all surprised to find Sir Robert Walpole, the 
Duke of Somerset, Halifax, and Somers. 

Halifax was, par excellence^ the Maecenas of his day, and Pope 
described him admirably in the character of Bufo : — 

' Proud as Apollo, on his forked hill, 
Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by every quill ; 
Fed wit/i soft dedication all day long, 
Horace and he went hand in hand in song.' 

The dedications poured in thickly. Steele, Tickell, Philips, 
Smith, and a crowd of lesser lights, raised my lord each one on 
a higher pinnacle ; and in return the powerful minister was not 
forgetful of the douceur which well-tuned verses were accus- 
tomed to receive. He himself had tried to be a poet, and in 
1703 wrote verses for the toasting-cups of the Kit-kat. His 
lines to a Dowager Countess of ''" '' '"' '", are good enough to 
make us surprised that he .never wrote any better. Take a 
specimen : — 

' Fair Queen of Fop-land in her royal style ; 
Fop-land the greatest part of this great isle ! 
Nature did ne'er so equally divide 
A female heart 'twixt piety and pride : 
Her waiting-maids prevent the peep of day, 
And all in order at her toilet lay 
Prayer-books, patch-boxes, sermon-notes, and paint. 
At once t'improve the sinner and the saint.' 

A Maecenas who paid for his dedications was sure to be well 
spoken of, and Halifax has been made out a wit and a poet, 
as well as a clever statesman. Halifax got his earldom and the 
garter from George I., and died, after enjoying them less than 
a year, in 1715. 

Chancellor Somers, with A\'hom Halifax was associated in 
the impeachment case in 1701, was a far better man in every 
respect. His was probably the purest character among those 
of all the members of the Kit-kat. He was the son of a 
Worcester attorney, and born in 1652. He was educated at 
Trinity, Oxford, and rose purely by merit, distinguisliing him- 
self at the bar and on the bench, unwearied in his application 
to business, and an exact and upright judge. At school he 
-was a terribly good boy, keeping to his book in play-hours. 



I04 Charles Sackville, Lord Dorset. 

Throughout Hfe his habits were simple and regular, and his 
character unblemished. He slept but little, and in later years 
had a reader to attend him at waking. With such habits he can 
scarcely have been a constant attender at the club ; and as he 
died a bachelor, it would be curious to learn what ladies he 
selected for his toasts. In his latter years his mind was 
weakened, and he died in 1 716 of apoplexy. Walpole calls 
him ^ one of those divine men who, like a chapel in a palace, 
remained unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, 
and folly.' 

A huge stout figure rolls in now to join the toasters in Shire 
Lane. In the puffy, once handsome face, there are signs of 
age, for its owner is past sixty ; yet he is dressed in superb 
fashion ; and in an hour or so, when the bottle has been dili- 
gently circulated, his wit will be brighter and keener than that 
of any young man present. I do not say it will be repeatable, 
for the talker belongs to a past age, even coarser than that of the 
Kit-kat. He is Charles Sackville,"^ famous as a companion of 
the merriest and most disreputable of the Stuarts, famous — or, 
rather, infamous — for his mistress, Nell Gwynn, famous for his 
verses, for his patronage of poets, and for his wild frolics in 
early life, when Lord Buckhurst. Rochester called him 

' The best good man with the worst-natured muse ;' 

and Pope says he was 

* The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great, 
Of fops in learning and of knaves in state. ' 

Our sailors still sing the ballad which he is said to have written 
on the eve of the naval engagement between the Duke of York 
and Admiral Opdam, which begins — 

* To all you ladies now on land 
We men at sea indite.' 

With a fine classical taste and a courageous spirit, he had 
in early days been guilty of as much iniquity as any of Charles's 
profligate court. He was one of a band of young libertines 
who robbed and murdered a poor tanner on the high-road, and 
were acquitted, less on account of the poor excuse they dished 

* For some notice of Lord Dorset, see p. 61. 



Less Celebrated Wits, 105 

Tip for this act than of their rank and fashion. Such fine gen- 
tlemen could not be hanged for the sake of a mere workman in 
those days — no ! no ! Yet he does not seem to have repented 
of this transaction, for soon after he was engaged with Sedley 
and Ogle in a series of most indecent acts at the Cock Tavern 
in Bow-street, where Sedley, in ' birthday attire,' made a 
blasphemous oration from the balcony of the house. In later 
years he was the pride of the poets : Dryden and Prior, 
Wycherley, Hudibras, and R}Tner, were all encouraged by 
him, and repaid him with praises. Pope and Dr. King were 
no less bountiful in their eulogies of this jNfecenas. His con- 
versation was so much appreciated tliiit gloomy William III. 
chose him as his companion, as merr}^ Charles had done be- 
fore. The famous Irish ballad, which my Uncle Toby was 
always humming, ^ Lillibullero bullen-a-lah,' but which Percy 
attributes to the Marquis of Wharton, another member of the 
Kit-kat, was said to have been ^ratten by Buckhurst. He re- 
tained his wit to the last ; and Congreve, who visited him when 
he was dying, said, ' Faith, he stutters more wit than other 
people have in their best health.' He died at Bath in 1706. 

Buckhurst does not complete the list of conspicuous members 
of this club, but the remainder were less celebrated for their Avit. 
There was the Duke of Kingston, the father of Lady ]\Iar}^ Wort- 
ley Montagu ; Granville, who imitated Waller, and attempted 
to make his * MyTa' as celebrated as the court-poet's Saccharissa, 
who, by the way, was the mother of the Earl of Sunderland ; 
the Duke of Devonshire, Avhom Walpole calls ^ a patriot among 
the men, a gallant among the ladies,' and who founded Chats- 
worth ; and other noblemen, chiefly belonging to the latter part 
of the seventeenth centur}', and all devoted to William III., 
though they had been bred at the courts of Charles and James. 

With such an array of wits, poets, statesmen, and gallants, 
it can easily be believed that to be the toast of the Kit-kat was 
no slight honour; to be a member of it a still greater one ; and 
to be one of its most distinguished, as Congreve was, the 
greatest. Let us now see what title this conceited beau and 
poet had to that position. 



WILLIAM CONGE. EVE. 



When and where was he born? — The Middle Temple. — Congreve finds his 
Vocation. — Verses to Queen Mary. — Ine Tennis-court Theatre. — Congreve 
abandons the Drama. — Jeremy Collier. — The Immorality of the Stage. — 
Very improper Things. — Congreve's Writings. — Jeremy's 'Short Views.' — 
Rival Theatres. — Dryden's Funeral. — A Tub-Preacher. — Horoscopic Pre- 
dictions. — Dryden's Sohcitude for his Son. — Congreve's Ambition. — Anec- 
dote of Voltaire and Congreve. — The Profession of Mascenas. — Congreve's 
Private Life. — ' Malbrook's' Daughter. — Congreve's Death and Burial. 




ilHEN ^ Queen Sarah' of Marlborough read the silly- 
epitaph which Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, 
had written and had engraved on the monument she 
set up to Congreve, she said, with one of the true Blenheim 
sneers, ^ I know not what happiness she might have in his com- 
pany, but I am sure it was no Jionour^ alluding to her daughter's 
eulogistic phrases. 

Queen Sarah was right, as she often was when condemnation 
was called for : and however amusing a companion the drama- 
tist may have been, he was not a man to respect, for he had 
not only the common vices o"" his age, but added to them a fop- 
pish vanity, toadyism, and fine gentlemanism (to coin a most 
necessary word), which we scarcely expect to meet with in a 
man who sets up for a satirist. 

It is the fate of greatness to have falsehoods told of it, and 
of nothing in connection with it more so than of its origin. If 
the converse be true, Congreve ought to have been a great man, 
for the place and time of his birth are both subjects of dispute. 
Oh 1 happy Gifford ! or happy Croker ! why did you not — per- 
haps you did — go to work to set the world right on this matter 
— ^you, to whom a date discovered is the highest palm (no pun 
intended, I assure you) of glory, and who would rather Shakes- 



Whe7t and Where zvas lie Born ? 107 

pere had never written ' Hamlet/ or Homer the ' IHad/ than that 
some miserable little forgotten scrap which decided a year or a 
place should have been consigned to flames before it fell into 
your hands ? Why did you not bring the thunder of your 
abuse and the pop-gunnery of your satire to bear upon the 
question, ' How, when, and where was William Congreve 
bom?' 

It was Lady Morgan, I think, who first ' saw the light' (that 
is, if she was born in the day-time) in the Irish Channel. If 
it had been only some one more celebrated, we should have 
had by this time a series of ]Dhilosophical, geographical, and 
ethnological pamphlets to prove that she was English or Irish, 
according to the fancies or prejudices of the writers. It was 
certainly a very Irish thing to do, w^hich is one argument for 
the Milesians, and again it was done in the Irish Channel, 
which is another and a stronger one ; and altogether w^e are not 
inclined to go into forty-five pages of recondite facts and fine- 
drawn arguments, mingled with the most vehement abuse of 
anybody who ever before wrote on the subject, to prove that 
this country had the honour of producing her ladyship — the 
Wild Irish Girl. We freely give her up to the sister island. 
But not so William Congreve, though we are equally indifferent 
to the honour in his case. 

The one party, then, assert that he was born in this country, 
the other that he breathed his first air in the Emerald Isle. 
Whichever be the true state of the case, we, as Englishmen, 
prefer to agree in the commonly received opinion that he came 
into this wicked world at the village of Bardsea, or Bardsey, 
not far from Leeds in the county of York. Let the Bardseyans 
immediately erect a statue to his honour, if they have been re- 
miss enough to neglect him heretofore. 

But our difficulties are not ended, for there is a similar doubt 
about the year of his birth. His earliest biographer assures us 
he was born in 1672, and others that he was baptized three 
years before, in 1669. Such a proceeding might well be taken 
as a proof of his Hibernian extraction, and accordingly we 
find Malone supporting the carHcr date, producing, of course, 
a certificate of baptism to support himself; and as wc have a 



io8 The Middle Temple. 

very great respect for his authority, we beg also to support Mr. 
Malone. 

This being settled, we have to examine who were his parents f 
and this is satisfactorily answered by his earliest biographer, 
who informs us that he was of a very ancient family, being 
* the only surviving son of William Congreve, Esq. (who was 
second son to Richard Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stret- 
ton in that county),' to wit, Yorkshire. Congreve /<?;'^ held a 
military command, which took him to Ireland soon after the 
dramatist's birth, and thus young William had the incomparable 
advantage of being educated at Kilkenny, and afterwards at 
Trinity, Dublin, the ' silent sister,' as it is commonly called at 
our universities. 

At the age of nineteen, this youth sought the classic shades 
of the Middle Temple, of which he was entered a student, but 
by the honourable society of which he was never called to the 
bar ; but whether this was from a disinclination to study ' Coke 
upon Lyttleton,' or from an incapacity to digest the requisite 
number of dinners, the devouring of which qualify a young 
gentleman to address an enlightened British jury, we have no 
authority for deciding. He was certainly not the first, nor the 
last, young Templar who has quitted special pleading on a cru- 
sade to the heights of Parnassus, and he began early to try 
the nib of his pen and the colour of his ink in a novel. Eheu ! 
how many a novel has issued from the dull, dirty chambers of 
that same'Temple ! The waters of the Thames just there seem 
to have been augmented by a mingled flow of sewage and 
Helicon, though the former is undoubtedly in the greater pro- 
portion. This novel, called ' Incognita : or. Love and Duty 
Reconciled,' seems to have been — for I confess that I have not 
read more than a chapter of it, and hope I never may be forced 
to do so — great rubbish, with good store of villains and ruffians, 
love-sick maidens who tune their lutes — always conveniently at 
hand — and love-sick gallants who run their foes through the 
body with the greatest imaginable ease. It was, in fact, such 
a novel as James might have written, had he lived a century 
and a half ago. It brought its author but little fame, and ac- 
cordingly he turned his attention to another branch of litera- 



Cojigrevc Finds his Vocation. 1 09 

ture, and in 1693 produced ^ The Old Bachelor/ a play of which 
Dryden, his friend, had so high an opinion that he called it 
the ^best first-play he had ever read.' However, before being 
put on the stage it was submitted to Dryden, and by him and 
others prepared for representation, so that it was well fathered. 
It was successful enough, and Congreve thus found his voca- 
tion. In his dedication — a regular piece of flummery of those 
days, for which authors were often well paid, either in cash or 
interest — he acknowledges a debt of gratitude to Lord Halifax, 
who appears to have taken the young man by the hand. 

The young Templar could do nothing better now than write 
another play. Play-making was as fashionable an amusement 
in those days of Old Drury, the only patented theatre then, as 
novel-writing is in i860; and when the young ensign, Van- 
brugh, could write comedies and take the direction of a theatre, 
it was no derogation to the dignity of the Staffordshire squire's 
grandson to do as much. Accordingly, in the following year 
he brought out a better comedy, ' The Double Dealer,' with a 
prologue which was spoken by the famous Anne Bracegirdle. 
She must have been eighty years old when Horace Walpole 
WTote of her to that other Horace — Mann : ' Tell Mr. Chute 
that his friend Bracegirdle breakfasted with me this morning. 
As she went out and wanted her clogs, she turned to me and 
said : " I remember at the playhouse they used to call, Mrs. 
Oldfield's chair ! Mrs. Barry's clogs ! and Mrs. Bracegirdle's 
pattens !'" These three ladies were all buried in AVestminster 
Abljey, and, except Mrs. Gibber, the most beautiful and most 
sinfiil of them all — though they were none of them spotless — 
are the only actresses whose ashes and memories are hallowed 
by the place, for we can scarcely say that they do // much 
honour. 

The success of 'The Double Dealer,' v/as at first moderate, 
although that higlily resj)ectable woman, Queen Mary, honoured 
it with licr august presence, which forthwitli callctl up verses of 
the old adulatory style, though with less point and neatness 
than those addressed to tlie Virgin Queen : 

• Wit is again the care of majesty,' 



no Verses to Queen Mary. 

said the poet, and 

* Thus flourished wit in our forefathers' age, 
And thus the Roman and Athenian stage. 
Whose wit is best, we'll not presume to tell, 
But this we know, our audience will ex cell ; 
For never was in Rome, nor Athens seen 
So fair a circle, and so bright a queen.' 

But this was not enough, for when Her Majesty departed for 
another reahn in the same year, Congreve put her into a highly 
eulogistic pastoral, under the name of Pastora, and made some 
compliments on her, which were considered the finest strokes 
of poetry and flattery combined, that an age of addresses and 
eulogies could produce. 

' As lofty pines o'ertop the lowly steed, 

So did her graceful height all nymphs exceed, 

To which exceUing height she bore a mind 

Humble as osiers, bending to the wind. 

* * % * 

I mourn Pastora dead ; let Albion mourn, 
And sable clouds her chalkie chffs adorn.' 

This play was dedicated to Lord Halifax, of whom we have 
spoken, and who continued to be Congreve's patron. 

The fame of the young man was now made ; but in the fol- 
lowing year it was destined to shine out more brilliantly still. 
Old Betterton — one of the best Hamlets that ever trod the 
stage, and of whom Booth declared that when he was playing 
the Ghost to his Hamlet, his look of surprise and horror was 
so natural, that Booth could not for some minutes recover him- 
self — was now a veteran in his sixtieth year. For forty years 
he had walked the boards, and made a fortune for the patentees 
of Drury. It was very shabby of them, therefore, to give some 
of his best parts to younger actors. Betterton was disgusted, 
and determined to set up for himself, to which end he managed 
to procure another patent, turned the Queen's Court in 
Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn, into a theatre, and opened it on 
the 30th of April, 1695. The building had been before used 
as a theatre in the days of the Merry Monarch, and Tom 
Killegrew had acted here some twenty years before \ but it had 
again become a ^ tennis-quatre of the lesser sort,' says Gibber, 
and tlie new theatre was not very grand in fabric. But Better- 



The Tennis Conrt Theatre. 1 1 r 

ton drew to it all the best actors and actresses of his former 
company ; and Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Bracegirdle remained true 
to the old man. Congreve, to his honour, espoused the same 
cause, and the theatre opened with his play of ^ Love for Love,' 
which was more successful than either of the former. The 
veteran himself spoke the prologue, and fair Bracegirdle the 
epilogue, in which the poet thus alluded to their change of 
stage : 

' And thus our audience, which did once resort 
To shining theatres to see our sport, 
Now find us tost into a tennis-court. 
Thus from the past, we hope for future grace : 

I beg it 

And some here know I have a begging face. ' 

The king himself completed the success of the opening by 
attending it, and the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields might have 
ruined the older house, if it had not been for the rapidity with 
which Vanbrugh and Gibber, who wrote for Old Drury, managed 
to concoct their pieces ; while Congreve was a slower, though 
perhaps better, writer. ' Love for Love ' was hereafter a 
favourite of Betterton's, and when in 1709, a year before his 
death, the company gave the old man — then in ill health, poor 
circumstances, and bad spirits — a benefit, he chose this play, 
and himself, though more than seventy, acted the part of 
Valentine, supported by Mrs. Bracegirdle as Angelina, and 
Mrs. Barry as Frail. 

The young dramatist with all his success, Avas not satisfied 
with his fame, and resolved to show the world that he had as 
much poetry as wit in him. This he failed to do ; and, like 
better writers, injured his own fame, by not being contented 
with what he had. Congreve — the wit, the dandy, the man 
about town — took it into his head to write a tragedy. In 1697 
* The Mourning Bride ' was acted at the Tennis Court Theatre. 
The author was wise enough to return to his former muse, and 
.some time after produced his best piece, so some think, ' The 
Way of the World,' which was also performed by Betterton's 
company; but, alas! for overwriting — that cacoethcs of im- 
prudent men — it was ahnost hissed off the stage. Whctlicr this 
was owing to a weariness of Cungrcvc's style, or wliether at tlie 



112 Congreve Abandons the Drama. 

time of its first appea^rance Collier's attacks, of which anon, had 
already disgusted the public with the obscenity and immorality 
of this writer, I do not know : but, whatever the cause, the 
consequence was that Mr. William Congreve, in a fit of pique, 
made up his mind never to write another piece for the stage — a 
wise resolution, perhaps — and to turn fine gentleman instead. 
With the exception of composing a masque called the ^ Judg- 
ment of Paris,' and an opera ^ Gemele,' which was never per- 
formed, he kept this resolution very honestly; and so Mr. 
William Congreve's career as a playwright ends at the early age 
of thirty. 

But though he abandoned the drama, he was not allowed to 
retire in peace. There was a certain worthy, but peppery little 
man, who, though a Jacobite and a clergyman, was stanch and 
true, and as superior in character — even, indeed, in vigour of 
writing — to Congreve, as Somers was to every man of his age. 
This very Jeremy Collier, to whom we owe it that there is any 
English drama fit to be acted before our sisters and wives in 
the present day. Jeremy, the peppery, purged the stage in a 
succession of Jeremiads. 

Born in 1650, educated at Cambridge as a poor scholar, ordained 
at the age of twenty-six, presented three years later with the living 
of Ampton, near Bury St. Edmunds, Jeremy had two qualities 
to recom^mend him to Englishmen — respectability and pluck. In 
an age when the clergy were as bad as the blackest sheep in 
their flocks, Jeremy was distinguished by purity of life ; in an 
age when the only safety lay in adopting the principles of the 
Vicar of Bray, Jeremy was a Nonjuror, and of this nothing 
could cure him. The Revolution of 1688 was scarcely effected, 
when the fi.ery little partizan published a pamphlet, which was 
rewarded by a residence of some months in Newgate, not in 
capacity of chaplain. But he was scarcely let out, when again 
went his furious pen, and for four years he continued to assail 
the new government, till his hands were shackled and his 
mouth closed in the prison of ' The Gate-house.' Now, see 
the character of the man. He was liberated upon giving bail, 
but had no sooner reflected on this liberation than he came to 
the conclusion that it was wrong, by offering security, to re- 



Jeremy Collier. 113 

•cognize the authority of magistrates appointed by a usurper, as 
he held WilHam to be, and voluntarily surrendered himself to 
his judges. Of course he was again committed, but this time - 
to the King's Bench, and would doubtless in a few years have 
made the tour of the London prisons, if his enemies had not 
been tired of trying him. Once more at liberty, he passed the 
next three years in retirement. 

After 1693, Jeremy Collier's name was not brought^ before 
the public till 1696, when he publicly absolved Sir John Friend 
and Sir William Perkins, at their execution, for being concerned 
in a plot to assassinate King William. His ^ Essays on Moral 
Subjects' were published in 1697; 2nd vol., 1705; 3rd vol., 
1709. But the only way to put out a firebrand like this is to 
let it alone, and Jeremy, being, no longer persecuted, began, 
at last, to think the game was grown stupid, and gave it up. 
He was a well-meaning man, however, and as long as he had 
the luxury of a grievance, would injure no one. 

He found one now in the immorality of his age, and if he 
had left politics to themselves from the first, he might have 
done much more good than he did. Against the vices of a 
court and courtly circles it was useless to start a crusade single- 
handed ; but his quaint clever pen might yet dress out a power- 
ful Jeremiad against those who encouraged the licentiousness 
of the people. Jeremy was no Puritan, for he was a Nonjuror 
and a Jacobite, and we may, therefore, believe that the cause 
was a good one, when we find him adopting precisely the same 
line as the Puritans had done before him. In 1698 he published, 
to the disgust of all Drury and Lincoln's Inn, his * Short View 
of the Immorality and Profancness of the English Stage, to- 
gether with the Sense of Antiquity upon this Argument.' 

While the King of Naples is supplying his ancient Venuses 
with gowns, and putting his Marses and Herculeses into' pan- 
taloons, there are — such arc the varieties of opinion — respect- 
able men in this country who call Paul de Kock the greatest 
moral writer of his age, and who would yet like to sec * The 
Relapse,' * Love for Love,' and the choice specimens of 
Wycherley, Farquhar, and even of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
acted at the Princess's and the Playmarket in the year of grace 

S 



1 14 Very Improper Things, 

i860. I am not writing -A Short View' of this or any other 
moral subject; but this I must say— the effect of a sight or 
sound on a human being's silly little passions must of necessity 
be relative. Staid people read ' Don Juan/ Lewis's ' Monk/ 
the plays of Congreve, and any or all of the publications of 
Holywell Street, without more than disgust at their obscenity 
and admiration for their beauties. But could we be pardoned 
for putting these works into the hands of ' sweet seventeen/ or 
making Christmas presents of them to our boys? Ignorance 
of evil is, to a certain extent, virtue : let boys be boys in purity 
of mind as long as they can : let the unrefined ' great un- 
washed' be treated also much in the same way as young 
people. I maintain that to a coarse mind all improper ideas, 
however beautifully clothed, suggest only sensual thoughts- 
nay, the very modesty of the garments makes them the more 
insidious— the more dangerous. I would rather give my boy 
John, Massinger, or Beaumont and Fletcher, whose very im- 
proper things ' are called by their proper names,' than let him 
dive in the prurient innuendo of these later writers. 

But there is no need to argue the question— the public has 
decided it long since, and, except in indeUcate ballets, and oc- 
casional rather French passages in farce, our modern stage is 
free from immorality. Even in Garrick's days, when men were; 
not much more refined than in those of Queen Anne, it was 
found impossible to put the old drama on the stage without 
considerable weeding. Indeed I doubt if even the liberal up- 
holder of Paul de Kock would call Congreve a moral writer \ 
but I confess I am not a competent judge, for risum teiieatis^ 
my critics, I have not read his works since I was a boy, and what* 
is more, I have no intention of reading them. I well remember 
getting into my hands a large thick volume, adorned with 
miserable woodcuts, and bearing on its back the tide ' Wycher- 
ley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar.' I devoured it at first 
with the same avidity with which one might welcome a bottie- 
imp, who at the hour of one's dulness turned up out of the 
carpet and offered you delights new and old for nothing but a 
tether on your soul : and with a like horror, boy though I was, 
I recoiled'^from it when any better moment came. It seemed 



Con^ reves Writings. 1 1 5 

to me, when I read this book, as if Hfe were too rotten for any 
behef, a nest of sharpers, adulterers, cut-throats, and prostitutes. 
There was none^— as far as I remember — of that amiable weak- 
ness, of that better sentiment, which in Ben Jonson or Mas- 
singer reconcile us to human nature. If truth be a test of 
genius, it must be a proof of true poetry, that man is not made 
uglier than he is. Nay, his very ugliness loses its intensity and 
falls upon our diseased tastes, for want of some goodness, some 
purity and honesty to relieve it. I will not say that there is 
none of this in Congreve. I only know, that my recollection 
of his plays is like that of a vile nightmare, which I would not 
for anything have return to me. I have read, since, books as 
bad, perhaps worse in some respects, but I have found the re- 
demption here and there. I would no more place Shandy 
in any boy's hands than Congreve and Farquhar ; and yet I 
can read Tristram again and again with delight ; for amid all that 
is bad there stand out Trim and Toby, pure specimens of the best 
side of human nature, coming home to us and telling us that 
the world is not all bad. There maybe such touches in ^ Love 
for Love,' or ' The Way of the World ' — I know not and care 
not. To my remembrance Congreve is but a horrible night- 
mare, and may the fates forbid I should be forced to go through 
his plays again. 

Perhaps, then, Jeremy was not far wrong, when he attacked 
these specimens of the drama with an unrelenting Nemesis ; 
but he was not before his age. It was less the obvious coarse- 
ness of these productions with which he found fault than their 
demoralizing tendency in a direction which we should now, 
perhaps, consider innocuous. Certainly the Jeremiad overdid 
it, and like a swift, but not straiglit bowler at cricket, he sent 
balls which no wicket-keeper could stop, and which, therefore, 
were harmless to the batter. He did not want boldness. He 
attacked Dryden, now close upon his grave : Congreve, a young 
man ; Vanbrugh, Cibber, Farquhar, and the rest, all alive, all 
in the zenith of their fame, and all as popular as writers could 
be. It was as much as if a man should stand up to-day and 
denounce Dickens and Tlrac kcray, with the exception that well- 
meaning people went along with Jeremy, whereas very few 

8—2 



1 1 6 Jeremy's ' Short Views! 

would do more tha/n smile at the zeal of any one who tilted 
against our modern pets. Jeremy, no doubt, was bold, but he 
wanted tact, and so gave his enemy occasion to blaspheme. 
He made out cases where there were none, and let alone what 
we moderns should denounce. So Congreve took up the 
cudgels, against him with much wit and much coarseness, and 
the two fought out the battle in many a pamphlet and many a 
letter. But Jeremy was not to be beaten. His ' Short View ' 
was followed by ' A Defence of the Short View,' a ^ Second 
Defence of the Short View,' ' A Farther Short View,' and, in 
short, a number of ' Short Views,' which had been better 
merged into one ' Long Sight.' Jeremy grew coarse and bitter ; 
Congreve coarser and bitterer ; and the whole controversy made 
a pretty chapter for the ' Quarrels of Authors.' But the Jere- 
miad triumphed in the long run, because, if its method was bad, 
its cause was good, and a succeeding generation voted Congreve 
immoral. Enough of Jeremy. We owe him a tribute for his 
pluck, and though no one reads him in the present day, we may 
be thankful to him for having led the way to a better state of 
things.'^ 

Congreve defended himself in eight letters addressed to Mr. 
Moyle, and we can only say of them, that, if anything, they are 
yet coarser than the plays he would excuse. 

The works of the young Templar, and his connection with 
Betterton, introduced him to all the ^vriters and wits of his day. 
He and Vanbrugh, though rivals, were fellow-workers, and our 
glorious Haymarket Theatre, which has gone on at times when 
Drury and Covent Garden have been in despair, owes its origin 
to their confederacy. But Vanbrugh' s theatre was on the site 
of the present Opera House, and the Haymarket was set up as a 
rival concern. Vanbrugh's was built in 1705, and met the 
usual fate of theatres, being burnt down some eighty-four years 
after. It is curious enough that this house, destined for the 
^ legitimate drama ' — often a very illegitimate performance — ^was 
opened by an opera set to Italian music, so that ^ Her Ma- 
jesty's' has not much departed from the original cast of the place. 

* Dryden, in the Preface to his Fables, acknowledged that Collier ' had, in 
many points, taxed him justly. ' * '■*' 



Diydeiis DeatJi, 1 17 

Perhaps Congreve's best friend was Dryden. This man's 
life and deadi are pretty well known, and even his funeral has 
been described time and again. But Corinna — as she was 
styled — gave of the latter an account which has been called 
romantic, and much discredited. There is a deal of character- 
istic humour in her story of the funeral, and as it has long been 
lost sight of, it may not be unpalatable here : Dryden died on 
May-day, 1701, and Lord Halifax"^ undertook to give his body 
^. private funeral in Westminster Abbey. 

' On the Saturday following,' writes Corinna, ' the Company 
came. The Corps was put into a Velvet Hearse, and eighteen 
Mourning Coaches filled with Company attending. When, 
just before they began to move. Lord Jeffreys,t with some of 
his rakish Companions, coming by, in Wine, ask'd whose 
Funeral ? And being told ; " What 1" cries he, " shall Dryden, 
the greatest Honour and Ornament of the Nation, be buried 
after this private Manner ? No, Gentlemen ! let all that lov'd 
Mr. Dryden, and honour his Memory, alight, and join with me 
in gaining my Lady's Consent, to let me have the Honour of 
his Interment, which shall be after another manner than this, 
and I will bestow ^1000 on a Monument in the Abbey for 
him." The Gentlemen in the Coaches, not knowing of the 
Bishop of Rochester's Favour, nor of Lord Halifax's generous 
Design (these two noble Spirits having, out of Respect to the 
Family, enjoin'd Lady Elsabeth and her Son to keep their 
Favour concealed to the World, and let it pass for her own Ex- 
pense), readily came out of the Coaches, and attended Lord 
Jeffreys up to the Lady's Bedside, who was then sick. He re- 
peated the purport of what he had before said, but she abso- 
lutely refusing, he fell on his knees, vowing never to rise till his 
request was granted. The rest of the Company, by his Desire, 
kneeled also; she being naturally of a timorous Disposition, 
and then under a sudden surprise, fainted away. As soon as 
she recover'd her Speech, she cry'd, " No, no !'* " Enough 
gentlemen," rcply'd he (rising briskly), " My Lady is very good, 

* Charles Montagu, lOarl of Halifax. I^rd Halifax was born in 1661, and 
(lied in 1715. He was c|Jled ' Mouse Montagu.' 

t Son of Judge Jeffries : satirized by Pope under the name ' Bufo.' 



1 1 8 Dry den's Funeral. 

she says, Go, go !'* She repeated her former Words with all 
her Strength, but alas in vain ! her feeble voice was lost in their 
Acclamations of Joy ! and Lord Jeffreys order'd the Hearseman 
to carry the Corps to Russell's, an undertaker in Cheapside, 
and leave it there, till he sent orders for the Embalment, which, 
he added, should be after the Royal Manner. His Directions 
were obey'd, the Company dispersed, and Lady Elsabeth and 
Mr. Charles remained Inconsolable. Next Morning Mr. Charles 
waited on Lord Halifax, &c., to excuse his Mother and self, by 
relating the real Truth. But neither his Lordship nor the 
Bishop would admit of any Plea ; especially the latter, who had 
the Abbey lighted, the ground open'd, the Choir attending, an 
Anthem ready set, and himself waiting for some Hours, without 
any Corps to bury. Russell, after three days' Expectance of 
Orders for Embalment, without receiving any, waits on Lord 
Jeffreys, who, pretending Ignorance of the Matter, tuni'd it off 
with an ill-natured Jest, saying, " Those who observed the orders 
of a drunken Frolick, deserved no better ; that he remembered 
nothing at all of it, and he might do what he pleased with the 
Corps." On this Mr. Russell waits on Lady Elsabeth and Mr. 
Dryden ; but alas, it was not in their power to answer. The 
season was very hot, the Deceas'd had liv'd high and fast; and 
being corpulent, and abounding with gross Humours, grew very 
offensive. The Undertaker, in short, threaten'd to bring home 
the Corps, and set it before the Door. It cannot be easily 
imagin'd what grief, shame, and confusion seized this unhappy 
Family. They begged a Day's Respite, which was granted. 
Mr. Charles wrote a very handsome Letter to Lord Jeffreys, 
who returned it with this cool Answer, " He knew nothing of 
the Matter, and would be troubled no more about it." He 
then addressed the Lord Halifax and Bishop of Rochester, who 
were both too justly tho' unhappily incensed, to do anything in 
it. In this extream Distress, Dr. Garth, a man who entirely 
lov'd Mr. Dryden, and was withal a Man of Generosity and 
great Humanity, sends for the Corps to the College of Phy- 
sicians in Warwick Lane, and proposed a Funeral by Subscrip- 
tion, to which himself set a most noble example. Mr. Wycher- 
ley, and several others, among whom must not be forgotten 



A J^itb P readier, 119 

Henry Cromwell, Esq., Captain Gibbons, and Mr. Christopher 
Metcalfe, Mr. Dryden's Apothecary and intimate Friend (since 
a Collegiate Physician), who with many others contributed 
most largely to the Subscription; and at last a Day, about 
three weeks after his Decease, was appointed for the Interment 
at the Abbey. Dr. Garth pronounced a fine Latin Oration 
over the Corps at the College ; but the Audience being nume- 
rous, and the Room large, it was requisite the Orator should be 
elevated, that he might be heard. But as it unluckily hap- 
pen'd there was nothing at hand but an old Beer-Barrel, which 
the Doctor with much good-nature mounted ; and in the midst 
of his Oration, beating Time to the Accent with his Foot, the 
Head broke in, and his Feet sunk to the Bottom, which occa- 
sioned the malicious Report of his Enemies, " That he was 
turned a Tub-Preacher." However, he finished the Oration 
with a superior grace and genius, to the loud Acclamations of 
Mirth, which inspir'd the mix'd or rather Mob-Auditors. The 
Procession began to move, a numerous Train of Coaches at- 
tended the Hearse : But, good God ! in what Disorder can only 
be expressed by a Sixpenny Pamphlet, soon after published, 
entitled ^^ Dryden's Funeral." At last the Corps arrived at the 
Abbey, which was all unlighted. No Organ played, no Anthem 
sung ; only two of the Singing boys preceded the Corps, who 
sung an Ode of Horace, with each a small candle in their 
Hand. The Butchers and other Mob broke in like a Deluge, 
so that only about eight or ten Gentlemen could gain Admis- 
sion, and those forced to cut the Way with their drawn Swords, 
The Cofiin in this Disorder was let down into Chaucer's Grave, 
with as much confusion, and as little Ceremony, as was possi- 
ble ; every one glad to save themselves from the Gentlemen's 
Swords, or the Clubs of the Mob. When the Funeral was 
over, Mr. Charles sent a Challenge to Lord Jeffreys, who re- 
fusing to answer it, he sent several others, and went often him- 
self, but could neither get a Letter deliver'd, nor Admittance to 
speak to him, that he resolved, since his Lordship refused to 
answer him like a Gentleman, he would watch an Opportunity 
to meet him, and fight off hand, tho' witli all the Rules of 
Honour ; which his Lordship hearing, left the Town, and Mr, 



I20 Dry dens Solicitude for his Son, 

Charles could never have the satisfaction to meet him, tho' hei 
sought it till his death with the utmost Application.' 

Dryden was, perhaps, the last man of learning that believed 
in astrology; though an eminent English author, now living, 
and celebrated for the variety of his acquirements, has been 
known to procure the casting of horoscopes, and to consult a 
noted ' astrologer,' who gives opinions for a small sum. The 
coincidences of prophecy are not more remarkable than those 
of star-telling ; and Dryden and the author I have referred to 
were probably both captivated into belief by some fatuitous 
realization of their horoscopic predictions. Nor can we alto- 
gether blame their credulity, when we see biology, table-turning, 
rapping, and all the family of imposture, taken up seriously in 
our own time. 

On the birth of his son Charles, Dryden immediately cast his 
horoscope. The following account of Dryden's paternal soli- 
citude for his son, and its result, may be taken as embelHshed, 
if not apocryphal. Evil hour, indeed — Jupiter, Venus, and 
the Sun were all ^ under the earth;' Mars and Saturn were in< 
square : eight, or a multiple of it, would be fatal to the child 
— the square foretold it. In his eighth, his twenty-third, or his 
thirty-second year, he was certain to die, though he might pos- 
sibly linger on to the age of thirty-four. The stars did all they 
could to keep up their reputation. When the boy was eight 
years old he nearly lost his life by being buried under a heap 
of stones out of an old wall, knocked down by a stag and 
hounds in a hunt. But the stars were not to be beaten, and 
though the child recovered, went in for the game a second time 
in his twenty-third year, when he fell, in a fit of giddiness, from 
a tower, and, to use Lady Elsabeth's words, was ^ mash'd to a 
mummy.' Still the battle was not over, and the mummy re- 
turned in due course to its human form, though considerably 
disfigured. Mars and Saturn were naturally disgusted at his 
recovery, and resolved to finish the disobedient youth. As we 
have seen, he in vain sought his fate at the hand of Jefireys ; 
but we must conclude that the ofi'ended constellations took 
Neptune in partnership, for in due course the youth met with 
a watery grave. 



Congreves A mbitio7u 1 2 1 

After abandoning the drama, Congreve appears to have come 
out in the Hght of an independent gentleman. He was already 
sufficiently introduced into literary society; Pope, Steele, Swift, 
and Addison were not only his friends but his admirers, and we 
can well believe that their admiration was considerable, when 
we find the one dedicating his ' Miscellany,' the other his trans- 
lation of the ' Iliad,' to a man who was qualified neither by 
rank nor fortune to play Maecenas. 

At what time he was admitted to the Kit-kat I am not in 
a position to state, but it must have been after 17 15, and by 
that time he was a middle-aged man, his fame was long since 
achieved ; and whatever might be thought of his works and his 
controversy with Collier, he was recognised as one of the lite- 
rary stars at a period when the great courted the clever, and 
wit was a passport to any society Congreve had plenty of that, 
and probably at the Kit-kat was the life of the party whea 
Vanbrugh was away or Addison in a graver mood. Untroubled 
by conscience, he could launch out on any subject whatever; 
and his early life, spent in that species of so-called gaiety which 
was then the routine of every young man of the world, gave 
him ample experience to draw upon. But Congreve's ambition 
was greater than his talents. No man so little knew his real 
value, or so grossly asserted one which he had not. Gay, hand- 
some, and in good circumstances, he aspired to be, not Congreve 
the poet, not Congreve the wit, not Congreve the man of mind, 
but simply Congreve the fine gentleman. Such humility would 
be charming if it were not absurd. It is a vice of scribes to 
seek a character for which they have little claim. Moore loved 
to be thought a diner-out rather than a poet; even Byron 
affected the fast man when he might have been content with 
the name of ' genius ;' but Congreve went farther, and was 
ashamed of being poet, dramatist, genius, or what you will. 
An anecdote of him, told by Voltaire, who may have been an 
'awfu' liar,' but had no temptation to invent in such a case as 
this, is so consistent with what we gather of the man's cha- 
racter, that one cannot but think it is true. 

The philosopher of Ferney was anxious to see and converse 
with a brother dramatist of such celebrity as the author of 






122 Anecdote of Voltaire and Congreve, 

' The Way of the World.' He expected to find a man of a 
keen satirical mind, who would join him in a laugh against 
humanity. He visited Congreve, and naturally began to talk 
of his works. The fine gentleman spoke of them as trifles 
utterly beneath his notice, and told him, with an affectation 
which perhaps was sincere, that he wished to be visited as a 
gentleman, not as an author. One can imagine the disgust of 
his brother dramatist. Voltaire replied, that had Mr. Congreve 
been nothing more than a gendeman, he should not have 
taken the trouble to call on him, and therewith retired with an 
expression of merited contempt. 

It is only in the present day that authorship is looked upon 
as a profession, though it has long been one. It is amusing 
to listen to the sneers of men who never wrote a book, or who^ 
having written, have gained thereby some more valuable ad- 
vantage than the publisher's cheque. The men who talk with 
horror of writing for money, are glad enough if their works 
introduce them to the notice of the influential, and aid them 
in procuring a place. In the same way, Congreve was not at 
all ashamed of fulsome dedications, which brought him the 
favour of the great. Yet we may ask, if, the labourer being 
worthy of his hire, and the labour of the brain being the highest, 
finest, and most exhausting that can be, the man who straight- 
forwardly and without affectation takes guineas from his pub- 
lisher, is not honester than he who counts upon an indirect 
reward for his toil ? Fortunately, the question is almost setded 
by the example of the first writers of the present day ; but 
there are still people who think that one should sit down to a 
year's— ay, ten years' — ^hard mental work, and expect no re- 
turn but fame. Whether such objectors have always private 
means to return to, or whether they have never known what it 
is to write a book, we do not care to examine, but they are to 
be found in large numbers among the educated ; and indeed, 
to this present day, it is held by some among the upper classes 
to be utterly derogatory to write for money. 

Whether this was the feeling in Congreve's day or not is not 
now the question. Those were glorious days for an author, I 
who did not mind playing the sycophant a litde. Instead of 



The Profession of McEcenas. 123 

having to trudge from door to door in Paternoster Row, humbly 
requesting an interview, which is not always granted — instead of 
sending that heavy parcel of MS., which costs you a fortune for 
postage, to publisher after publisher, till it is so often ' returned 
with thanks' that you hate the very sight of it, the young author of 
those days had a much easier and more comfortable part to play. 
An introduction to an influential man in town, who again would 
introduce you to a patron, was all that was necessary. The 
profession of Maecenas was then as recognized and established 
as that of doctor or lawyer. A man of money could always 
buy brains ; and most noblemen considered an author to be 
as necessary a part of his establishment as the footmen who 
ushered them into my lord's presence. A fulsome dedication 
in the largest type was all that he asked : and if a writer 
were sufficiently profuse in his adulation, he might dine at Mae- 
cenas's table, drink his sack and canary without stint, and apply 
to him for cash whenever he found his pockets empty. Nor 
was this all : if a writer were sufficiently successful in his works 
to reflect honour on his patron, he was eagerly courted by others 
of the noble profession. He was off'ered, if not hard cash, as 
good an equivalent, in the shape of a comfortable government 
sinecure ; and if this was not to be had, he was sometimes even 
lodged and boarded by his obliged dedicatee. In this way he 
was introduced into the highest society; and if he had wit 
enough to support the character, he soon found himself /^n'A' 
princeps in a circle of the highest nobility in the land. Thus 
it is that in the clubs of the day we find title and wealth min- 
gling with w^it and genius ; and the writer who had begun life by 
a cringing dedication, was now rewarded by the devotion and 
assiduity of the men he had once flattered. When Steele, Swift, 
Addison, Pope, and Congreve were the kings of their sets, it 
was time for authors to look and talk big. Eheu ! those happy 
days arc gone ! 

Our dramatist, therefore, soon discovered that a good play 
was the key to a good i>lace, and the Whigs took care that he 
should have it. Oddly enough, when the Tories came in they 
did not turn him out. Perhaps they wanted to gain him over 
to themselves ; perhaps, like the Vicar of Bray, he did not 



124 ' Congreves Private Life, 

mind turning his coat once or twice in a life-time. However 
this may be, he managed to keep his appointment without 
offending his own party ; and when the latter returned to power, 
he even induced them to give him a comfortable Htde sinecure, 
which went by the name of Secretary to the Island of Ja- 
maica, and raised the income from his appointments to i;i2oo 

a year. . 

From this period he was litde before the public. He could 
afford now to indulge his natural indolence and selfishness. 
His private hfe was perhaps not worse than that of the majority 
of his contemporaries. He had his intrigues, his mistresses, 
the same love of wine, and the same addiction to gluttony. 
He had the reputation of a wit, and with wits he passed his 
time, sufficiently easy in his circumstances to feel no damping 
to his spirits in the cares of this life. The Island of Jamaica 
probably gave him no further trouble than that of signing a few 
papers from time to time, and giving a receipt for his salary. 
His life, therefore, presents no ver}^ remarkable feature, and he 
is henceforth known more on account of his friends than for 
aught he may himself have done. The best of these friends 
was Walter Moyle, the scholar, who translated parts of ^ Lucian 
and Xenophon, and was pretty well known as a classic. He 
was a Cornish man of independent means, and it was to him 
that Congreve addressed the letters in which he attempted to 
defend himself from the attacks of Collier. 

It was not to be expected that a wit and a poet should go 
through life without a platonic, and accordingly we find our 
man not only attached, but devoted to a lady of great dis- 
tinction. This was no other than Henrietta, Duchess of Marl- 
borough, the daughter of -^Malbrook' himself, and of the 
famous ^ Queen Sarah.' Henrietta was the eldest daughter, 
and there was no son to inherit the prowess of Churchill and 
the parsimony of his wife. The nation— to which, by the way, 
the Marlboroughs were never grateful— would not allow the 
title of their pet warrior to become extinct, and a special Act 
of Parliament gave to the eldest daughter the honours of the 
duchy.'' The two Duchesses of Marlborough hated each othe 
* See Burke's ' Peerage.' 



^Malbrook's Daicghter, 125 

cordially. Sarah's temper was probably the main cause of their 
bickering ; but there is never a feud between parent and child 
in which both are not more or less blameable. 

The Duchess Henrietta conceived a violent fancy for the wit 
and poet, and whatever her husband, Lord Godolphin, may 
have thought of it, the connection ripened into a most intimate 
friendship, so much so that Congreve made the duchess not 
only his executrix, but the sole residuary legatee of all his pro- 
perty.''' His will gives us some insight into the toadying cha- 
racter of the man. Only four near relations are mentioned as 
legatees, and only ^^\o is divided among them ; whereas, 
after leaving ;£'2oo to Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress ; ;£"ioo, ^and 
all my apparel and linnen of all sorts ' to a Airs. Rooke, he di- 
vides the rest between his friends of the nobility, Lords Cob- 
ham and Shannon, the Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Mary 
Godolphin, Colonel Churchill (who receives ^twenty pounds, 
together with my gold-headed cane'), and, lastly, ^to the poor 
of the parish,' the magnificent sum oi ten pounds. 'Blessed are 
those who give to the rich ;' these words must surely have ex- 
pressed the sentiment of the worldly Congreve. 

However, Congreve got something in return from the 
Duchess Henrietta, which he might not have received from 
* the poor of the parish,' to ^vit, a monument, and an inscrip- 
tion on it wriften by her own hand. I have already said what 
^ Queen Sarah' thought of the latter, and, for the rest, those 
who care to read the nonsense on the walls of Westminster 
Abbey can decide for themselves as to the honour the poet re- 
ceived from his titled friend. 

The latter days of AVilliam Congreve were passed in wit and 
gout : the wine, which warmed the one, probably brought on 
the latter. After a course of ass's milk, which does not seem 
to have done him much good, the ex-dramatist retired to Bath, 
a very fashionable place for departing life in, under easy and 
elegant circumstances. But he not only drank of the springs 
beloved of King Bladud, of apocr)'phal memory, but even went 
so far as to imbibe the snail-water, which was tlicn tlie last 
species of quack cure in vogue. This, probably, despatched 

• The Duchess of Maryborough received ^^lo.ooo by Mr. Congrcve's wilL 



126 ' Con^reves Death and Burial. 

him. But it is only just to that disagreeable little reptile that 
infests our gardens, and whose slime was supposed to possess 
pecuUarly strengthening properties, to state that his death was 
materially hastened by being overturned when driving in his 
chariot. He was close upon sixty, had long been blind from 
cataracts in his eyes, and as he was no longer either useful or 
ornamental to the world in general, he could perhaps be spared. 
He died soon after this accident in January, 1729. He had 
the sense to die at a time when Westminster Abbey, being re- 
garded as a mausoleum, was open to receive the corpse of any 
one who had a httle distinguished himself, and even of some 
who had no distinction whatever. He was buried there with 
great pomp, and his dear duchess set up his monument. So 
much for his body. What became of the soul of a dissolute, 
vain, witty, and unprincipled man, is no concern of ours. Re- 
quiescat in pace, if there is any peace for those who are buried 
in Westminster Abbey. 




i 



BEAU NASH 

The King of Bath.— Nash at Oxford.—' My Boy Dick. '—Offers of Knighthood. 
— Doing Penance at York. — Days of Folly. — A very Romantic Story. — 
Sickness and Civilization. — Nash descends upon Bath. — Nash's Chef- 
d'oeuvre. — The Ball. — Improvements in the Pump-room, &c. — A Public 
Benefactor.— Life at Bath in Nash's time.— A Compact with the Duke of 
Beaufort. — Gaming at Bath. — Anecdotes of Nash. — 'Miss Sylvia.' — A 
Generous Act.— Nash's Sun setting.— A Panegyric— Nash's Funeral.— His 
Characteristics. 




HERE is nothing new under the sun, said Walpole, by 
way of a very original remark. ' No,' whispered 
George Sehvyn, ' nor under the grandson, either.' 
Mankind, as a body, has proved its silHness in a thousand 
ways, but in none, perhaps, so ludicrously as in its respect for 
a man's coat. He is not always a fool that knows the value of 
dress ; and some of the wisest and greatest of men have been 
dandies of the first water. King Solomon was one, and Alex- 
ander the Great was another ; but there never was a more des- 
potic monarch, nor one more humbly obeyed by his subjects, 
than the King of Bath, and he won his dominions by the cut of 
his coat. But as Hercules was killed by a dress-shirt, so the 
beaux of the modern world have generally ruined themselves 
by their wardrobes, and l)rought remorse to their hearts, or 
contempt from the very people who once worshipped them. 
The husband of Mrs. Damer, who appeared in a new suit 
twice a-day, and whose wardrobe sold for ;2^iS,ooo, blew his 
brains out at a coffee-house. Beau Fielding, Beau Nash, and 
Beau Bnnnmell all expiated their contemptible vanity in ob- 
scure old age of want and misery. As the world is full of folly, 
the history of a fool is as good a mirror to hold up to it as 
another ; but in the case of Beau Nash the only question is, 
whether he or his subjects were the greater fools. So now for 



128 The Kmg of Bath, 

a picture of as much folly as could well be crammed into that 
hot basin in the Somersetshire hills, of which more anon. 

It is a hard thing for a man not to have had a father — harder 
still, like poor Savage, to have one whom he cannot get hold 
of j but perhaps it is hardest of all, w^hen you have a father, 
and that parent a very respectable man, to be told that you 
never had one. This was Nash's case, and his father was so 
little known, and so seldom mentioned, that the splendid Beau 
was thought almost to have dropped from the clouds, ready 
dressed and powdered. He dropped in reality from anything 
but a heavenly place — the shipping town of Swansea : so that 
Wales can claim the honour of having produced the finest 
beau of his age. 

Old Nash was, perhaps, a better gentleman than his son ; 
but with far less pretension. He was a partner in a glass- 
manufactory. The Beau, in after-years, often got rallied on the 
inferiority of his origin, and the least obnoxious answer he ever 
made was to S^rah of Marlborough, as rude a creature as him- 
self, who told him he was ashamed of his parentage. ^ No, 
madam,' replied the King of Bath, ^I seldom mention my 
father, in company, not because I have any reason to be 
ashamed of him, but because he has some reason to be 
ashamed of me.' Nash, though a fop and a fool, was not a 
bad-hearted man, as we shall see. And if there were no other 
redeeming point in his character, it is a great deal to say for 
him, that in an age of toadyism, he treated rank in the same 
manner as he did the want of it, and did his best to remove 
the odious distinctions which pride would have kept up in his 
dominions. In fact. King Nash may be thanked for having, 
by his energy in this respect, introduced into society the first 
elements of that middle class which is found alone in England. 

Old Nash — ^whose wife, by the way, was niece to that Colonel 
Poyer who defended Pembroke Castle in the days of the first 
Revolution — was one of those silly men who want to make 
gentlemen of their sons, rather than good men. He had his 
wish. His son Richard was a very fine gentleman, no doubt; 
but, unfortunately, the same circumstances that raised him to 
that much coveted positioi^ also made him a gambler and a 



Nash at Oxford. I2q 

profligate. Oh ! foolish papas, when will you learn that a 

Christian snob is worth ten thousand irreligious gentlemen? 

When will you be content to bring up your boys for heaven 

rather than for the brilliant world ? Nash, senior, sent his son 

first to school and then to Oxford, to be made a gentleman of. 

Richard was entered at Jesus College, the haunt of the Welsh. 

In my day, this quiet little place was celebrated for little more 

than the humble poverty of its members, one-third of whom 

rejoiced in the cognomen of Jones. They were not renowned 

for cleanliness, and it was a standing joke with us silly boys, to 

ask at the door for 'that Mr. Jones who had a tooth-brush.' If 

the college had the same character then, Nash must have asto- 

jnished its dons, and we are not surprised that in his first year 

they thought it better to get rid of him. 

His father could ill afford to keep him at Oxford, and fondly 
hoped he would distinguish himself ' My boy Dick' did so at 
the very outset, by an offer of marriage to one of those charming 
sylphs of that academical city, who are always on the look-out 
for credulous undergraduates. The affair was discovered, and 
Master Richard, who was not seventeen, was removed from the 
University.'^ Whether he ever, in after-life, made another offer, 
I know not, but there is no doubt that he ought to have been 
married, and that the connections he formed in later years were 
far more disreputable than his first love affairs. 
, The worthy glass manufacturer, having failed to make his 
son a gentleman in one way, took the best step to make him 
a blackguard, and, in spite of the wild inclinations he had 
already evinced, bought him a commission in the army. In 
this new position the incipient Beau did everything but his 
duty ; dressed superbly, but would not be in time for parade , 
spent more money than he had, but did not obey orders ; and 
finally, though not expelled from the army, he found it con- 
jvenient to sell his commission, and return home, after spcndini; 
ithe proceeds. 

j Papa was now disgusted, and sent the young Hopclc.v, to 
jshift for himself What could a well-disposed, handsome youth 

* Warner (' History of Batli,' p. 366), says, ' Nash was removed from Oxford 
'3yhisfnends.' 



1 30 Ojfers of Knighthood. 

do to keep body and, not soul, but clothes together? He had 
but one talent, and that was for dress. Alas, for our degenerate 
days ! When we are pitched upon our own bottoms, we must 
work ; and that is a highly ungentlemanly thing to do. But in 
the beginning of the last century, such a degrading resource 
was quite unnecessary. There were always at hand plenty of 
establishments where a youth could obtain the necessary funds 
to pay his tailor, if fortune favoured him ; and if not, he could 
follow the fashion of the day, and take to what the Japanese 
call ^the happy Despatch.' Nash probably suspected that he 
had no brains to blow out, and he determined the more reso- 
lutely to make fortune his mistress. He went to the gaming- 
table, and turned his one guinea into ten, and his ten into a 
hundred, and was soon blazing about in gold lace, and a new 
sword, the very dehght of dandies. 

He had entered his name, by way of excuse, at the Temple, 
and we can quite beUeve that he ate all the requisite dinners, 
though it is not so certain that he paid for them. He soon 
found that a fine coat is not so very far beneath a good brain 
in worldly estimation, and when, on the accession of WilHam 
the Third, the Templars, according to the old custom, gave his 
Majesty a banquet, Nash, as a promising Beau, was selected to 
manage the estabhshment. It was his first experience of the 
duties of an M.C., and he conducted himself so ably on this 
occasion that the king even offered to make a knight of him. 
Probably Master Richard thought of his empty purse, for he 
replied with some of that assurance which afterwards stood him 
in such good stead, ' Please your majesty, if you intend to make 
me a knight, I wish I may be one of your poor knights of 
Windsor, and then I shall have a fortune, at least able to sup- 
port my tide.' Wilham did not see the force of this argument, 
and Mr. Nash remained Mr. Nash till the day of his death. 
He had another chance of the tide, however, in days when he 
could have better maintained it, but again hfe refused. Queen 
Anne once asked him why he declined knighthood. He re- 
plied : * There is Sir William Read, the mountebank, who has 
just been knighted, and I should have to call him "brother."' 
The honour was, in fact, rather a cheap one in those days, and 



Doing Pena7ice at York. 13 1 

who knows whether a man who had done such signal service to 
his country did not look forward to a peera,ge ? Worse men 
than even Beau Nash have had it. 

Well, Nash could afford to defy royalty, for he was to be 
himself a monarch of all he surveyed, and a good deal more ; 
but before we follow him to Bath, let us give the devil his due — 
which, by the way, he generally gets — and tell a pair of tales 
in the Beau's favour. 

Imprimis, his accounts at the Temple were jQio deficient. 
Now I don't mean that Nash was not as great a liar as most 
of his craft, but the truth of this tale rests on the authority of 
the ' Spectator,' though Nash took delight in repeating it. 

' Come hither, young man,' said the Benchers, coolly : 
* Whereunto this deficit ?' 

*Pri'thee, good masters,' quoth Nash, ' that ^^ 10 was spent 
on making a man happy.' 

* A man happy, young sir, pri'thee explain.' 

' Odds donners,' quoth Nash, * the fellow said in my hearing 
that his wife and bairns were starving, and £,\o would make 
him the happiest man sub sole, and on such an occasion as His 
Majesty's accession, could I refuse it him?' 

Nash was, proverbially more generous than just. He would 
not pay a debt if he could help it, but would give the very- 
amount to the first friend that begged it. There was much 
ostentation in this, but then my friend Nash 7vas ostentatious. 
One friend bothered him day and night for ;£^2o that was 
owing to him, and he could not get it. Knowing his debtor's 
character, he hit, at last, on a happy expedient, and sent a friend 
to bor?'ow the money, ' to relieve his urgent necessities.' Out 
came the bank note, before the story of distress was finished. 
The friend carried it to the creditor, and when the latter again 
met Nash, he ouglu to have made him a pretty compliment on 
his honesty. ^ 

Perhaps the King of Bath would not liavc tolerated in any 
one else the juvenile frolics he delighted in after-years to relate 
of his own early days. When at a loss for cash, he would do 
anything, but work, for a fifty pound note, and having, in one 
of his trips, lost all his money at York, the Beau undertook to 

9—2 



132 Days of Folly. 

* do penance' a.t the minster door for that sum. He accordingly 
arrayed himself — not in sackcloth and ashes — but in an able- 
bodied blanket, and nothing else, and took his stand at the 
porch, just at the hour when the dean would be going in to 
read service. * He, ho,' cried that dignitary, who knew him,. 
' Mr. Nash in masquerade ?' — ^ Only a Yorkshire penance, 
Mr. Dean,' quoth the reprobate ; / for keeping bad company, 
too,' pointing therewith to the friends who had come to see 
the sport. 

This might be tolerated, but when in the eighteenth century 
a young man emulates the hardiness of Godiva, without her 
merciful heart, we may not think quite so well of him. Mr. 
Richard Nash, Beau Extraordinary to the Kingdom of Bath, 
once rode through a village in that costume of which even our 
first parent was rather ashamed, and that, too, on the back of 
a cow ! The wager was, I believe, considerable. A young 
Englishman did something more respectable, yet quite as ex- 
traordinary, at Paris, not a hundred years ago, for a small bet. 
He was one of the stoutest, thickest-built men possible, yet 
being but eighteen, had neither whisker nor moustache to mas- 
culate his clear English complexion. At the Maison Doree 
one night he offered to ride in the Champs Elys^es in a lady's 
habit, and not be mistaken for a man. A friend undertook to 
dress him, and went all over Paris to hire a habit that would 
fit his round figure. It was hopeless for a time, but at last a 
good-sized body was found, and added thereto, an ample skirt. 
Felix dressed his hair with maijite plats and a net. He looked 
perfect, but in coming out of the hairdresser's to get into his 
fly, unconsciously pulled up his skirt and displayed a sturdy 
pair of well-trousered legs. A crowd^there is always a ready 
crowd in Paris — ^was waiting, and the laugh was general. This 
hero reached the horse-dealer's — 'mounted,' and rode down 
the ^hamps. ' A very fine woman that,' said a Frenchman in 
the promenade, ' but what a back she has !' It was in the 
return bet to this that a now well-known diplomat drove a goat- 
chaise and six down the same fashionable resort, with a monkey, 
dressed as a footman, in the back seat. Th.e days of folly did 
not, apparently end with Beau Nash. 






A very Romantic Story, 133 

There is a long lacuna in the history of this worthy's life, 
which may have been filled up by a residence in a spunging- 
house, or by a temporary appointment as billiard-marker ; but 
the heroic Beau accounted for his disappearance at this time in 
a much more romantic manner. He used to relate that he was 
once asked to dinner on board of a man-of-war under orders 
for the Mediterranean, and that such was the affection the 
officers entertained for him, that, having made him drunk — no 
difficult matter — they weighed anchor, set sail, and carried the 
successor of King Bladud away to the wars. Having gone so 
far, Nash was not the man to neglect an opportunity for ima- 
ginary valour. He therefore continued to relate, that, in the 
apocryphal vessel, he was once engaged in a yet more apocry- 
phal encounter, and wounded in the leg. This was a little too 
much for the good Bathonians to believe, but Nash silenced 
their doubts. On one occasion, a lady who was present when 
he was telling this story, expressed her incredulity. 

' I protest, madam,' cried the Beau, lifting his leg up, ' it is 
true, and if I cannot be believed, your ladyship may, if you 
please, receive further information and feel the ball in my leg.' 
Wherever Nash may have passed the intervening years, may 
be an interesting speculation for a German professor, but is of 
little moment to us. We find him again, at the age of thirty, 
taking first steps towards the complete subjugation of the king- 
dom he afterwards ruled. 

There is, among the hills of Somersetshire, a huge basin 
formed by the river Avon, and conveniently supplied with a 
natural gush of hot water, which can be turned on at any time 
for the cleansing of diseased bodies. This hollow presents 
many curious anomalies; though sought for centuries for the 
sake of heaUh, it is one of the most unhealthily-situated places 
in the kingdom ; here the body and the pocket are alike cleaned 
out, but the spot itself has been noted for its dirtiness since the 
days of King Bladud's wise pigs; here, again, the creased 
flesh used to be healed, but the hcaUhy soul within it speedily 
l)esickened : you came to cure gout and rheumatism, and caught 
dn exchange dicc-fcvcr. 

The mention of tliose pigs reminds me that it would be a 



134 Sickness and Civilization, 

shameful omission to speak of this city without giving the story 
of that apocryphal British monarch. King Bladud. But let me 
be the one exception ; let me respect the good sense of the 
reader, and not insult him by supposing him capable of believ- 
ing a mythic jumble of kings and pigs and dirty marshes, which 
he will, if he cares to, find at full length in any ^ Bath Guide' — 
price sixpence. 

But whatever be the case with respect to the Celtic sove- 
reign, there is, I presume, no doubt, that the Romans were 
here, and probably the centurians and tribunes cast the alea in 
some pristine assembly-room, or wagged their plumes in some 
well-built Pump-room, with as much spirit of fashion as the 
full-bottomed-wig exquisites in the reign of King Nash. At 
any rate Bath has been in almost every age a common centre 
for health-seekers and gamesters — two antipodal races who 
always flock together — and if it has from time to time declined, 
it has only been for a period. Saxon churls and Norman lords 
were too sturdy to catch much rheumatic gout ; crusaders had 
better things to tliink of than their imaginary ailments ; good- 
health was in fashion under Plantagenets and Tudors ; doctors 
were not believed in ; even empirics had to praise their wares 
with much wit, and Morrison himself must have mounted a 
bank and dressed in Astleyian costume in order to find a 
customer; sack and small-beer were harmless, when homes 
were not comfortable enough to keep earl or churl by the fire- 
side, and ' out-of-doors' was the proper drawing-room for a 
man : in short, sickness came in with civilization, indisposition 
with immoral habits, fevers with fine gentlemanliness, gout with 
greediness, and valetudinarianism — there is no Anglo-Saxon 
word for that — with what we falsely call refinement. So, what- 
ever Bath may have been to pampered Romans, who over-ate 
themselves, it had little importance to the stout, healthy middle 
ages, and it was not till the reign of Charles II. that it began 
to look up. Doctors and touters — the two were often one in 
those days — thronged there, and fools were found in plenty to 
follow them. At last the blessed countenance of portly Anne 
smiled on the pig styes of King Bladud. In 1703 she went to 
Bath, and from that time 'people of distinction ' flocked there* 



NasJt Descends Upoji Bath. 1 35 

The assemblage was not perhaps very brilHaut or very refined. 
The visitors danced on the green, and played privately at 
hazard. A few sharpers found their way down from London ; 
and at last the Duke of Beaufort instituted an M.C. in the per- 
son of Captain Webster — Nash's predecessor — whose main act 
of glory was in setting up gambling as a public amusement. 
It remained for Nash to make the place what it afterwards was, 
when Chesterfield could lounge in the Pump-room and take 
snuff with the Beau; when Sarah of Marlborough, Lord and 
Lady Hervey, the Duke of Wharton, Congreve, and all the 
little-great of the day thronged thither rather to kill time with 
less ceremony than in London, than to cure complaints more 
or less imaginary. 

The doctors were only less numerous than the sharpers ; the 
i:)lace was still uncivilized ; the company smoked and lounged 
without etiquette, and played without honour : the place itself 
lacked all comfort, all elegance, and all cleanliness. 

Upon this delightful place, the avatar of the God of Eti- 
quette, personified in Mr. Richard Nash, descended some- 
where about the year 1705, for the purpose of regenerating the 
barbarians. He alighted just at the moment that one of the 
doctors we have alluded to, in a fit of disgust at some slight on 
the part of the town, was threatening to destroy its reputation, 
or, as he politely expressed it, ' to throw a toad into the spring.' 
The Bathonians were alarmed and in consternation, when 
}'Oung Nash, who must have already distinguished himself as a 
macaroni, stepped forward and offered to render the angry 
physician impotent. ^ We'll charm his toad out again with 
music,' quoth he. He evidently thought very little of the 
watering-place, after his town experiences, and prepared to 
treat it accordingly. He got up a band in the Pump-room, 
brought thither in this manner the healthy as well as the sick, 
and soon raised the renown of Bath as a resort for gaiety as 
well as for mineral waters. In a word, he displayed a surpris- 
ing talent for setting everything and everybody to rights, and 
was, therefore, soon elected, by tacit voting, the King of Bath. 

He rapidly proved his qualifications for the position. First 
he secured his Orphean harmony by collecting a band-subscrip- 



136 Naslis Chef'd'cetcvre, 

tion, which gave two guineas a-piece to six performers ; then 
he engaged an official pumper for the Pump-room ; and lastly, 
finding that the bathers still gathered under a booth to drink 
their tea and talk their scandal, he induced one Harrison to 
build assembly-rooms, guaranteeing him three guineas a week 
to be raised by subscription. 

All this demanded a vast amount of impudence on Mr. 
Nash's part, and this he possessed to a liberal extent. The 
subscriptions flowed in regularly, and Nash felt his power in- 
crease with his responsibility. So, then, our minor monarch 
resolved to be despotic, and in a short time laid down laws for 
the guests, which they obeyed miost obsequiously. Nash had 
not much wit, though a great deal of assurance, but these laws 
were his chef (Tceuvre, Witness some of them : — 

I. * That a visit of ceremony at first coming and another at 
going away, are all that are expected or desired by ladies of 
quality and fashion — except impertinents. 

4. ' That no person takes it ill that any one goes to another's 
play or breakfast, and not theirs — except captious nature. 

5. ^ That no gentleman give his ticket for the balls to any 
but gentlewomen. N.B. — Unless he has none of his acquaint- 
ance. 

6. * That gentlemen crowding before the ladies at the ball, 
show ill manners ; and that none do so for the future — except 
such as respect nobody but themselves. 

9. ^ That the younger ladies take notice how many eyes ob- 
serve them. N.B. — This does not extend to the Have-at-alls. 

10. 'That all whisperers of lies and scandal betaken for 
their authors.' 

Really this law of Nash's must have been repealed some time 
or other at Bath. Still more that which follows : — 

II. 'That repeaters of such lies and scandal be shunned 
by all company, except such as have been guilty of the same 
crime.' 

There is a certain amount of satire in these Lycurgus sta- 
tutes that shows Nash in the light of an observer of society ; 
but, query, whether any frequenter of Bath would not have de- 
vised as good ? 



Tlie Ball, 137 

The dances of those days must have been somewhat tedious. 
They began with a series of minuets, in which, of course, only 
one couple danced at a time, the most distinguished opening 
the ball. These solemn performances lasted about two hours, 
and we can easily imagine that the rest of the company were 
delighted when the country dances, which included everybody, 
began. The ball opened at six ; the country dances began at 
eight : at nine there was a lull for the. gentlemen to offer their 
partners tea ; in due course the dances were resumed, and at 
eleven Nash held up his hand to the musicians, and under no 
circumstances was the ball allowed to continue after that hour. 
Nash well knew the value of early hours to invalids, and he 
would not destroy the healing reputation of Bath for the sake 
of a little more pleasure. On one occasion the Princess 
A^melia implored him to allow one dance more. The despot 
replied, that his laws were those of Lycurgus, and could not be 
abrogated for any one. By this we see that the M.C. was 
already an autocrat in his kingdom. 

Nor is it to be supposed that his majesty's laws were con- 
fined to such merely professional arrangements. Not a bit of 
it ; in a very short time his impudence gave him undenied right 
of interference with the coats and gowns, the habits and man- 
ners, even the daily actions of his subjects, for so the visitors 
at Bath were compelled to become. Si parvis compoiiere magna 
recibit, we may admit that the rise of Nash and that of Napo- 
leon were owing to similar causes. The French emperor found 
France in a state of disorder, with which sensible people were 
growing more and more disgusted ; he offered to restore order 
and propriety; the French hailed him, and gladly submitted to 
his early decrees ; then, when he had got them into the habit of 
obedience, he could make what laws he liked, and use lus 
power without fear of opposition. The liath emperor followed 
the same course, and it may be asked whether it does not de- 
mand as great an amount of courage, assurance, perseverance, 
and administrative power to subdue several hundreds of Englisli 
ladies and gentlemen as to rise supreme above some milHons 
of French republicans. Yet Nash experienced less opposition 



138 hnprovements m the Pmnp-Rooim 

than Napoleon; Nash reigned longer, and had no infernal 
machine prepared to blow him up. 

Everybody was delighted with the improvements in the 
Pump-room, the balls, the promenades, the chairmen — the 
Rouge ruffians of the mimic kingdom — whom he reduced to sub- 
mission, and therefore nobody complained when Emperor Nash 
went further, and made war upon the white aprons of the ladies 
and the boots of the gentlemen. The society was in fact in a 
very barbarous condition at the time, and people who came for 
pleasure liked to be at ease. Thus ladies lounged into the 
balls in their riding-hoods or morning dresses, gentlemen in 
boots, with their pipes in their mouths. Such atrocities were 
intolerable to the late frequenter of London society, and in his 
imperious arrogance, the new monarch used actually to pull off 
the white aprons of ladies who entered the assembly-rooms 
with that degage article, and throw them upon the back seats. 
Like the French emperor, again, he treated high and low in 
the same manner, and when the Duchess of Queensberry ap- 
peared in an apron, coolly pulled it off, and told her it was only 
fit for a maid-servant. Her grace made no resistance. 

The men were not so submissive ; but the M.C. turned them 
into ridicule, and whenever a gentleman appeared at the as- 
sembly-rooms in boots, would walk up to him, and in a loud 
voice remark, ^ Sir, I think you have forgot your horse.' To 
complete his triumph, he put the offenders into a song called 
^ Trentinella's Invitation to the Assembly,' 

' Come, one and all, 
To Hoyden Hall, 

For there's the assembly this night : 
None but proud fqc^^, 
Mind manners and^ rules ; 

We Hoydens do'decency slight. 

*•' Come trollops and slatterns, 
Cockt hats and white aprons ; 

This best our modesty suits : 
For why slrould not we 
In a dress be as free 

As Hogs-Norton squires in boots ? ' 

and as this was not enough, got up a puppet-show of a sufficient 
coarseness to suit the taste of the time, in which the practice of 
wearing boots was satirized. 



Life at Bath in Nash's Ti7ne. 13^ 

His next onslaught was upon that of carrying swords ; and 
in this respect Nash became a pubhc benefactor, for in those 
days, though Chesterfield was the writer on etiquette, people 
were not well-bred enough to keep their tempers, and rivals for 
a lady's hand at a minuet, or gamblers who disputed over their 
cards, invariably settled the matter by an option between suicide 
or murder under the polite name of duel. The M.C. wisely 
saw that these affairs would bring Bath in bad repute, and deter- 
mined to supplant the rapier by the less dangerous cane. In 
this he was for a long time opposed, until a notorious torch- 
light duel between two gamblers, of whom one was run through 
the body, and the other, to show his contrition, turned Quaker, 
brought his opponents to a sense of the danger of a weapon 
always at hand ; and henceforth the sword was abolished. 

These points gained, the autocrat laid down rules for the 
employment of the visitors' time, and these, from setting the 
fashion to some, soon became a law to all. The first thing to 
bp done was, sensibly enough, the ostensible object of their 
residence in Bath, the use of the baths. At an early hour four 
lusty chairmen waited on every lady to carry her, v/rapped in 
flannels, in 

'A little black box, just the size of a coffin,' 

to one of the five baths. Here, on entering, an attendant 
placed beside her a floating tray, on which were set her hand- 
kerchief, bouquet, and snuff-box^ for our great-great-grand- 
mothers did take snuff j and here she found her friends in the 
same bath of naturally hot water. It was, of course, a reunion 
for society on the plea of health ; but the early hours and ex- 
ercise secured the latter, wliatever the baths may have done. 
A walk in the Pump-room, to the music of a tolerable band, 
was the next measure; and there, of course, the gentlemen 
mingled with the ladies. A coffee-house was ready to receive 
those of either sex ; for that was a time when madame and 
miss lived a great deal in public, and English people were not 
ashamed of eating their breakfast in public company. These 
breakfasts were often enlivened by concerts paid for by the rich 
and enjoyed by all. 

Supposing the peacocks now to \)c dressed out and to liavc 



140 A Compact with the Duke of Beaufort. 

their tails spread to the best advantage, we next find some in 
the pubHc promenades, others in the reading-rooms, the ladies 
having their clubs as well as the men ; others riding ; others, 
perchance, already gambling. Mankind and womankind then 
dined at a reasonable hour, and the evening's amusements 
began early. Nash insisted on this, knowing the value of health 
to those, and they were many at that time, who sought Bath on 
its account. The balls began at six, and took place every 
Tuesday and Friday, private balls filling up the vacant nights. 
About the commencement of his reign, a theatre was built, and 
whatever it may have been, it afterwards became celebrated as 
the nursery of the London stage, and now, O tempo pas sat o I is 
almost abandoned. It is needless to add that the gaming- 
tables were thronged in the evenings. 

It was at them that Nash made the money which sufficed to 
keep up his state, which was vulgarly regal. He drove about 
in a chariot, flaming with heraldry, and drawn by six grays, with 
outriders, running footmen, and all the appendages which made 
an impression on the vulgar minds of the visitors of his king- 
dom. His dress was magnificent ; his gold lace unlimited, his 
coats ever new ; his hat alone was always of the same colour — 
white; and as the emperor Alexander was distinguished by his 
purple tunic and Brummell by his bow. Emperor Nash was 
known all England over by his white hat. 

It is due to the King of Bath to say that, however much he 
gained, he always played fair. He even patronized young 
players, and after fleecing them, kindly advised them to play no 
more. When he found a man fixed upon ruining himself, he 
did his best to keep him from that suicidal act. This was the 
case with a young Oxonian, to whom he had lost money, and 
whom he invited to supper, in order to give him his parental 
advice. The fool would not take the Beau's counsel and ' came 
to grief.' Even noblemen sought his protection. The Duke 
of Beaufort entered on a compact with him to save his purse, 
if not his soul. He agreed to pay Nash ten thousand guineas, 
whenever he lost the same amount at a sitting. It was a com- 
fortable treaty for our Beau, who accordingly watched his grace. 
Yet it must be said, to Nash's honour, that he once saved him„ 



Gaming at Bath. 141 

from losing eleven thousand, when he had already lost eight,, 
by reminding him of his compact. Such was play in those 
days ! It is said that the duke had afterwards to pay the fine, 
from losing the stipulated sum at Newmarket. 

He displayed as much honesty with the young Lord Towns- 
hend, who lost him his whole fortune, his estate, and even his- 
carriage and horses— what madmen are gamblers !— and actually 
cancetled the whole debt, on condition my lord should pay 
him ;^Sooo whenever he chose to claim it. To Nash's honour 
it must be said that he never came down upon the nobleman 
during his life. He claimed the sum from his executors, who 
paid it.—' Honourable to both parties.' 

But an end was put to the gaming at Bath and everywhere else 
—except in a royal palace, and Nash swore that, as he was a king, 
Bath came under the head of the exceptions— by an Act of 
Parliament. Of course Nash and the sharpers who frequented 
Bath— and their name was Legion— found means to evade tliis 
law for a time, by the invention of new games. But this could 
not last, and the Beau's fortune went with the death of the dice. 

Still, however, the very prohibition increased the zest for play 
for a time, and Nash soon discovered that a private table was 
more comfortable than a public one. He entered into an ar- 
rangement with an old woman at Bath, in virtue of which he 
! was to receive a fourth share of the profits. This was probably 
not the only Miell'-keeping transaction of his life, and he had 
once before quashed an action against a cheat in consideration 
of a handsome bonus ; and, in fiict, there is no saying what 
amount of dirty work Nash would not have done for a hundred 
or so, especially when the game of the table was shut up to 
him. Th^ man was immensely fond of money ; he liked to 
show his gold-laced coat and superb new waistcoat in the Grove, 
the Abbey Ground, and Bond Street, and to be known as Le 
Grand Nash. But, on the other hand, he did not love money 
for itself, and never hoarded it. It is, indeed, something to 
Nash's honour, that he died poor. He delighted, in the poverty 
of his mind, to display his great thick-set person to the most 
advantage ; he was as vain as any fop, without the alToctation 
of that character, for he was always bkmt and free-spoken, but. 



14^ Anecdotes of Nash, 

as long as he had enough to satisfy his vanity, he cared nothing 
for mere wealth. He had generosity, though he neglected the 
precept about the right hand and the left, and showed some 
ostentation in his charities. When a poor ruined fellow at his 
elbow saw him win at a throw ^200, and murmured ' How 
happy that would make me T Nash tossed the money to him, 
and said, ^ Go and be happy then.' Probably the witless beau 
did not see the delicate satire implied in his speech. It was 
only the triumph of a gamester. On other occasions he col- 
lected subscriptions for poor curates, and so forth, in the same 
spirit, and did his best towards founding an hospital, which has 
since proved of great value to those afflicted with rheumatic 
gout. In the same spirit, though himself a gamester, he often 
attempted to win young and inexperienced boys, who came to 
toss away their money at the rooms, from seeking their own 
ruin ; and, on the whole, there was some goodness of heart in 
this gold-laced bear. 

That he was a bear there are anecdotes enough to show, and 
whether true or not, they sufficiently prove what the reputation 
of the man must have been. Thus, when a lady, afflicted with 
a curvature of the spine, told him that ' She had come straight 
from London that day,' Nash replied with utter heartlessness, 
^Then, ma'am, you've been damnably warpt on the road.' The 
lady had her revenge, however, for meeting the beau one day 
in the Grove, as she toddled along with her dog, and being im- 
pudently asked by him if she knew the name of Tobit's dog, 
she answered quickly, ^ Yes, sir, his name was Nash, and a most 
impudent dog he was too.' 

It is due to Nash to state that he made many attempts to put 
an end tofthe perpetual system of scandal, which from some 
hidden cause seems always to be connected with mineral springs -N 
but as he did not banish the old maids, of course he failedT 
Of the young ladies and their reputation he took a kind of 
paternal care, and in that day they seem to have needed it, for 
even at nineteen, those who had any money to lose, staked it 
at the tables with as much gusto as the wrinkled, puckered, 
greedy-eyed ^ single woman,' of a certain or uncertain age. 
Nash protected and cautioned them, and even gave them the 



' Miss Sylvia' 143 

advantage of his own unlimited experience. Witness, for in- 
stance, the care he took of ^ Miss Sylvia/ a lovely heiress who 
brought her face and her fortune to enslave some and enrich 
others of the loungers of Bath. She had a terrible love of 
hazard, and very little prudence, so that Nash's good offices 
were much needed in the case. The young lady soon became 
the standing toast at all the clubs and suppers, and lovers of 
her, or her ducats, crowded round her ; but though at that time 
she might have made a brilliant match, she chose, as young 
women will do, to fix her affections upon one of the worst men 
in Bath, who, naturally enough, did not return them. When 
this individual, as a climax to his misadventures, was clapt into 
prison, the devoted young creature gave the greater part of her 
fortune in order to pay off his debts, and falling into disrepute 
from this act of generosity, which was, of course, interpreted 
after a worldly fashion, she seems to have lost her honour with 
her fame, and the fair Sylvia took a position which could not 
be creditable to her. At last the poor girl, weary of slights, 
and overcome with shame, took her silk sash and hanged her- 
self. The terrible event made a nine hoars' — not nine days' — 
sensation in Bath, which was too busy with mains and aces to 
care about the fate of one who had long sunk out of its circles. 
When Nash reached the zenith of his power, the adulation 
he received was somewhat of a parody on the flattery of cour- 
tiers. True, he had his bards from Grub Street who sang his 
praises, and he had letters to show from Sarah of Marlborough 
and others of that calibre, but his chief worshippers were cooks, 
musicians, and even imprisoned highwaymen — one of whom 
disclosed the secrets of the craft to him — who wrote him dedi- 
cations, letters, poems, and what not. The good city of Bath 
set up his statue, and did Newton and Pope^ the great honour 
of playing ^ supporters' to him, which elicited from Chesterfield 
some well-known lines : — 

' This statue placed the busts between 

Adds to the satire strength ; 
Wisdom and Wit are little seen, 
But Folly at full length.' 

* \ full-length statue of Nash was placed between busts of Newton and 
Pope. 



^44 ^ Geiterous Act, 

Meanwhile his private character was none of the best. He 
had in early life had one attachment, besides that unfortunate 
affair for which his friends had removed him from Oxford, and 
in that had behaved with great magnanimity. The young lady 
had honestly told him that he had a rival ; the Beau sent for 
him, settled on her a fortune equal to that her father intended 
for her, and himself presented her to the favoured suitor. 
Now, however, he seems to have given up all thoughts of matri- 
mony, and gave himself up to mistresses, who cared more for 
his gold than for himself It was an awkward conclusion to 
Nash's generous act in that one case, that before a year had 
passed, the bride ran away with her husband's footman ; yet, 
though it disgusted him with ladies, it does not seem to have 
cured him of his attachment to the sex in general. 

In the height of his glory Nash was never ashamed of re- 
ceiving adulation. He was as fond of flattery as Le Grand 
Monarque — and he paid for it too — whether it came from a 
prince or a chair-man. Every day brought him some fresh 
meed of praise in prose or verse, and Nash was" always de- 
lighted. 

But his sun was to set in time. His fortune went when 
gaming w^as put down, for he had no other means of subsist- 
ence. Yet he lived on : he had not the good sense to die ; 
and he reached the patriarchal age of eighty-seven. In his old 
age he was not only garrulous, but bragging : he told stories of 
his exploits, in which he, Mr. Richard Nash, came out as the 
first swordsman, swimmer, leaper, and what not. But by this 
time people began to doubt Mr. Richard Nash's long-bow, and 
the yarns he spun were listened to with impatience. He grew 
rude and testy in his old age ; suspected Quin, the actor, who 
was living at Bath, of an intention to supplant him ; made 
coarse, impertinent repartees to the visitors at that city, and in 
general raised up a dislike to himself Yet, as other monarchs 
have had their eulogists in sober mind, Nash had his in one of 
the most depraved ; and Anstey, the low-minded author of 
' The New Bath Guide,' panegyrized him a short time after his 
death in the following verses : — 



A Panegyric. 145 

• Yet here no confusion — no tumult is known ; 
Fair order and beauty establish their throne ; 
For order, and beauty, and just regulation, 
Support all the works of this ample creation. 
For this, in compassion to mortals below, 
The gods, their peculiar favour to show. 
Sent Hermes to Bath in the shape of a beau : 
That grandson of Atlas came down from abox'e 
To bless all the regions of pleasure and love ; 
To lead the fair nymph thro' the various maze, 
Bright beauty to marshal, his glory and praise ; 
To govern, improve, and adorn the gay scene. 
By the Graces instructed, and Cyprian queen : 
As when in a garden delightful and gay. 
Where Flora is wont all her charms to display, 
The sweet hyacinthus with pleasure we view, 
Contend with narcissus in delicate hue ; 
The gard'ner, industrious, trims out his border, 
Puts each odoriferous plant in its order ; 
The myrtle he ranges, the rose and the lily. 
With iris, and crocus, and daffa-down-dilly ; 
Sweet peas and sweet oranges all he disposes, 
At once to regale both your eyes and your noses. 
Long reign'd the great Nash, this omnipotent lord, 
Respected by youth, and by parents ador'd ; 
For him not enough at a ball to preside. 
The unwary and beautiful nymph v/ould he guide ; 
Oft tell her a tale, how the credulous maid 
By man, by perfidious man, is betrayed : 
Taught Charity's hand to relieve the distrest. 
While tears have his tender compassion exprcst ; 
But alas ! he is gone, and the city can tell 
How in years and in glory lamented he fe^ll. 
Him mourn'd all the Dryads on Claverton's mount ; 
Him Avon deplor'd, him the nymph of the fount, 
The crystalline streams. 
Then perish his picture — his statue decay — 
A tribute more lasting the Muses shall pay. 
If true, what philosophers all will assure us, 
Who dissent from the doctrine of great Epicurus, 
That the spirit's immortal (as poets allow) : 
In reward of his labours, his virtue and pains, 
He is footing it now in the Elysian plains. 
Indulged, as a token of Proserpine's favour, 
To preside at her balls in a cream-colour'd lx\avcr. 
Then peace to his ashes — our grief be supprtst, 
Since we find such a phoenix has sprung from his nest ; 
Kind heaven has sent us another professor, 
Who follows the steps of his great predecessor. ' 

The end of tlie Bath Beau was somewliat less tragical than 
that of his London successor — Brummell. Nash, in his old 
age and poverty, hung about the clubs and supper-tables, but- 
ton-holed youngsters, who thought him a bore, spun his long 
yams, and tried to insist on obsolete fasliions, when near the 
end ofliiv; lir,'< rcntnrv. 



146 NasJis FtmeraL 

The clergy took more care of him than the youngsters. 
They heard that Nash was an octogenarian, and Hkely to die 
in his sins, and resolved to do their best to shrive him. Wor- 
thy and well-meaning men accordingly wrote him long letters, 
in which there was a deal of warning, and there was nothing 
which Nash dreaded so much. As long as there was immediate 
fear of death, he was pious and humble ; the moment the fear 
had passed, he was jovial and indifferent again. His especial 
delight, to the last, seems to have been swearing against the 
doctors, whom he treated like the individual in Anstey's ' Bath 
Guide,' shying their medicines out of window upon their own 
heads. But the wary old Beckoner called him in, in due time, 
with his broken, empty-chested voice ; and Nash was forced to 
obey. Death claimed him — and much good it got of him — in 
1 76 1, at the age of eighty-seven: there are few beaux who 
lived so long. 

Thus ended a life, of which the moral lay, so to speak, out 
of it. The worthies of Bath were true to the worship of Folly, 
whom Anstey so well, though indelicately, describes as there 
conceiving Fashion; and though Nash, old, slovenly, disre- 
spected, had long ceased to be either beau or monarch, treated 
his huge unlovely corpse with the honour due to the great — 
or little. His funeral was as glorious as that of any hero, and 
far more showy, though much less solemn, than the burial of 
Sir John Moore. Perhaps for a bit of prose flummery, by way 
of contrast to Wolfe's lines on the latter event, there is litde to 
equal the account in a contemporary paper :—^ Sorrow sate 
upon every face, and even children lisped that their sovereign 
was no more. The awfulness of the solemnity made the deep- 
est impression on the minds of the distressed inhabitants. 
The' peasant discontinued his toil, the ox rested from the 
plough, all nature seemed to sympathise with their loss, and 
the muffled bells rung a peal of bob-major.' 

The Beau left little behind him, and that little not worth 
much, even including his renown. Most of the presents 
which fools or flatterers had made him, had long since been 
sent chez ma tante; a few trinkets and pictures, and a few 



His Characteristics. 1 47 

books, which probably he had never read, constituted his little 
store. '^ 

Bath and Tunbridge — for he had annexed that lesser kingdom 
to his own — had reason to mourn him, for he had almost made 
them what they were ; but the country has not much cause to 
thank the upholder of gaming, the institutor of silly fashion, 
and the high-priest of folly. Yet Nash was free from many 
vices we should expect to find in such a man. He did not 
drink, for instance; one glass of wine, and a moderate quantity 
of small beer, being his allowance for dinner. He was early 
in his hours, and made others sensible in theirs. He was gene- 
rous and charitable when he had the money; and when he 
had not he took care to make his subjects subscribe it. In a 
word, there have been worse men and greater fools ; and we 
may again ask whether those who obeyed and flattered him 
were not more contemptible than Beau Nash himself 

So much for the powers of impudence and a fine coat ! 



* In the 'Annual Register,' (vol. v. p. 37), it is stated that a pension of ten 
^ineas a month was paid to Nash during the latter years of his life by the Cor- 
poration of Bath. 




^NT 



10- 



PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON. 

Wharton's Ancestors. — His Early Years. — Marriage at Sixteen. — ^Wharton takes 
leave of his Tutor. — The Young Marquis and the Old Pretender. — Frolics- 
at Paris. — Zeal for the Orange Cause. — ^A Jacobite Hero. — The Trial of 
Atterbury. — Wharton's Defence of the Bishop. — Hypocritical Signs of 
Penitence. — Sir Robert Walpole duped. — Very Trying. — The Duke of 
Wharton's 'Whens.' — Mihtary Glory at Gibraltar. — 'Uncle Horace.' — 
Wharton to ' Uncle Horace.' — The Duke's Impudence. — High Treason. — 
Wharton's Ready Wit. — Last Extremities. — Sad Days in Paris. — His Last 
Journey to Spain. — His Death in a Bernardine Convent. 




F an illustration were wanted of that character unstable 
as water which shall not excel, this duke would at 
once supply it : if we had to warn genius against 
self-indulgence — some clever boy against extravagance — sorae 
poet against the bottle — this is the ' shocking example ' we 
should select : if we wished to show how the most splendid 
talents, the greatest wealth, the most careful education, the 
most unusual advantages, may all prove useless to a man who 
is too vain or too frivolous to use them properly, it is enough 
to cite that nobleman, whose acts gained for him the name of 
the mfamous Duke of Wharton. Never was character more 
mercurial, or life more unsettled than his ; never, perhaps, were 
more changes crowded into a fewer number of years, more fame 
and infamy gathered into so short a space. Suffice it to say, 
that when Pope wanted a man to hold up to the scorn of the 
world, as a sample of wasted abilities, it was Wharton that he 
chose, and his lines rise in grandeur in proportion to the vile- 
ness of the theme : 



' Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, 
Whose ruling passion was a love of praise. 
Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, 
Women and fools must Hke him or he dies ; 



Wharton s Ancestors. 149 

Though raptured senates hung on all he spoke, 
The club must hail him master of the joke. 
Shall parts so various aim at nothing new ? 
He'll shine a TuUy and a Wilmot too. 
*■ * -jt * 

Thus with each gift of nature and of art, 
And wanting nothing but an honest heart ; 
Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt. 
And most contemptible, to shun contempt ; 
His passion still, to covet general praise, 
His life to forfeit it a thousand ways ; 
A constant bounty which no friend has made ; 
An angel tongue which no man can persuade ; 
A fool with more of wit than all mankind ; 
Too rash for thought, for action too refined.' 

And then those memorable Hnes — 

' A tyrant to the wife his heart approved, 
A rebel to the very king he loved ; 
He dies, sad outcast of each church and state ; 
And, harder still ! flagitious, yet not great.' 

Though it may be doubted if the ^ lust of praise' was the cause 
of his eccentricities, so much as an utter restlessness and insta- 
bility of character, Pope's description is sufficiently correct, and 
will prepare us for one of the most disappointing lives we could 
well have to read. 

Philip, Duke of Wharton, was one of those men of whom an 
Irishman would say, that they were fortunate before tliey were 
born. His ancestors bequeathed him a name that stood high 
in England for bravery and excellence. The first of the house. 
Sir Thomas AVharton, had won his peerage from Henry VIH. 
for routing some 15,000 Scots with 500 men, and other gallant 
deeds. From his fatlier the marquis he inherited much of his 
talents ; but for the heroism of the former, he seems to have 
received it only in tlie extravagant form of foolhardiness. Wal- 
pole remembered, but could not tell where, a ballad he wrote 
on being arrested by the guard in St. James's Park, for singing 
the Jacobite song, '- The King shall have his own again,' and 
quotes two lines to show that he was not ashamed of his own 
cowardice on the occasion : — 

' Tlie duke he drew out half his sword, 
the guard drew out the rest.' 

At the siege of Gibraltar, where he look up arms n^^iin^t bis 



150 His Early Years. 

own king and country, he is said to have gone alone one night 
to the very walls of the town, and challenged the outpost. They 
asked him who he was, and when he replied, openly enough, 
^ The Duke of Wharton,' they actually allowed him to return 
without either firing on or capturing him. The story seems 
somewhat apocryphal, but it is quite possible that the English 
soldiers may have refrained from violence to a well-known mad- 
cap nobleman of their own nation. 

Philip, son of the Marquis of Wharton, at that time only a 
baron, was born in the last year but one of the seventeenth 
century, and came into the world endowed with, every quality 
which might have made a great man, if he had only added 
wisdom to them. His father wished to make him a brilliant 
statesman, and, to have a better chance of doing so, kept him 
at home, and had him educated under his own eye. He seems 
to have easily and rapidly acquired a knowledge of classical 
languages ; and his memory was so good that when a boy of 
thirteen he could repeat the greater part of the '^neid' and 
of Horace by heart. His father's keen perception did not 
allow him to stop at classics ; and he wisely prepared him for 
the career to which he was destined by the study of history, 
ancient and modern, and of English literature, and by teaching 
him, even at that early age, the art of thinking and writing on 
any given subject, by proposing themes for essays. There is 
certainly no surer mode of developing the reflective and reason- 
ing powers of the mind ; and the boy progressed with a rapidity 
which was almost alarming. Oratory, too, was of course culti- 
vated, and to this end the young nobleman was made to recite 
before a small audience passages from Shakspeare, and even 
speeches which had been delivered in the House of Lords, 
and we may be certain he showed no bashfulness in this dis- 
play. 

He was precocious beyond measure, and at sixteen was a 
man. His first act of folly — or, perhaps, he thought, of man- 
hood — came off at this early age. He fell in love with the 
daughter of a Major-General Holmes ; and though there is 
nothing extraordinary in that, for nine-tenths of us have been 
love-mad at as early an age, he did what fortunately very few 



Marriage at Sixteen, 151 

do in a first love affair, he married the adored one. Early mar- 
riages are often extolled, and justly enough, as safeguards against 
profligate habits, but this one seems to have had the contrary 
effect on young Philip. His wife was in every sense too good 
for him : he was madly in love with her at first, but soon shame- 
fully and openly faithless; Pope's line — 

• A tyrant to the wife his heart approved,' 

requires explanation here. It is said that she did not present 
her boy-husband with a son for three years after their marriage, 
and on this child he set great value and great hopes. About 
that time he left his wife in the country, intending to amuse 
himself in town, and ordered her to remain behind with the 
child. The poor deserted woman well knew what was the real 
object of this journey, and could not endure the separation. In 
the hope of keeping her young husband out of harm, and none 
the less because she loved him very tenderly, she followed him 
soon after, taking the little Marquis of Malmsbury, as the young 
live branch was called, with her. The duke was, of course, dis- 
gusted, but his anger was turned into hatred, when the child, 
which he had hoped to make his heir and successor, caught in 
town the small-pox, and died in infancy. He was furious with 
his wife, refused to see her for a long time, and treated her with 
unrelenting coldness. 

The early marriage was much to the distaste of Philip's father, 
who had been lately made a marquis, and who hoped to an'ange 
a very grand 'alliance' for his petted son. He was, in fact, so 
much grieved by it, that he was fool enough to die of it in 
17 15, and the marchioness survived him only about a year, 
being no less disgusted with the licentiousness which she al- 
ready discovered in her Young Hopeful. 

She did what she could to set him right, and the young 
married man was shipped off with a tutor, a Frcncli Huguenot, 
who was to take him to Geneva to be educated as a Protestant 
and a Whig. The young scamp declined to be cither. He was 
taken, by way of seeing the world, to the petty courts of Ger- 
many, and of course to that of Hanover, which had kindly sent 
us the worst family that ever disgraced the English throne, and 



152 Wharton takes Leave of his Tutor, 

by the various princes and grand-dukes received with all the 
honours due to a young British nobleman. 

The tutor and his charge settled at last at Geneva, and my 
young lord amused himself with tormenting his strict guardian. 
Walpole tells us that he once roused him out of bed only to 
borrow a pin. There is no doubt that he led the worthy man 
a sad life of it ; and to put a climax to his conduct, ran away 
from him at last, leaving with him, by way of hostage, a young 
bear-cub — probably quite as tame as himself — which he had 
picked up somewhere, and grown very fond of — birds of a 
feather, seemingly — with a message, which showed more wit 
than good-nature, to this effect : — ^ Being no longer able to 
bear with your ill-usage, I think proper to be gone from you ; 
however, that you may not want company, I have left you the 
bear, as the most suitable companion in the world that could 
be picked out for you.* 

The tutor had to console himself with a in quoque, for the 
young scapegrace had found his way to Lyons in October, 17 16, 
and then did the very thing his father's son should not have 
done. The Chevalier de St. George, the Old Pretender, James 
III., or by whatever other alias you prefer to call him, having 
failed in his attempt ^ to have his own again' in the preceding 
year, was then holding high court in high dudgeon at Avignon. 
Any adherent would, of course, be welcomed wdth open arms ; 
and \vhen the young marquis wrote to him to offer his allegi- 
ance, sending with his letter a fine entire horse as a peace offer- 
ing, he was warmly responded to. A person of rank was at 
once despatched to bring the youth to the ex-regal court; he 
was welcomed with much enthusiasm, and the empty title of 
Duke of Northumberland at once, most kindly, conferred on 
him. However, the young marquis does not seem to \\2.N^goiite 
the exile's court, for he stayed there one day only, and return- 
ing to Lyons, set off to enjoy himself at Paris. With much 
wit, no prudence, and a plentiful supply of money, which he 
threw about with the recklessness of a boy just escaped from 
his tutor, he could not fail to succeed in that capital; and, 
accordingly, the English received him with open arms. Even 
the ambassador, Lord Stair, though he had heard rumours of 




NVIIAKTON 8 ROCiUISU PUKHKN 1. 



See p. 15*J 



Follies at Paris. 153 

liis wild doings, invited him repeatedly to dinner, and did his 
best, by advice and warning, to keep him out of harm's way. 
Young Philip had a horror of preceptors, paid or gratuitous, and 
treated the plenipotentiary with the same coolness as he had 
served the Huguenot tutor. When the former, praising the late 
marquis, expressed — by w^ay of a slight hint — a hope ^ that he 
would follow so illustrious an example of fidelity to his prince, 
and affection to his country, by treading in the same steps,' 
the young scamp replied, cleverly enough, ' That he thanked 
his excellency for his good advice, and as his excellency had 
also a Avorthy and deserving father, he hoped he would likewise 
copy so bright an example, and tread in all his steps ;' the pert- 
ness of w^hich was pertinent enough, for old Lord Stair had 
taken a disgraceful part against his sovereign in the massacre 
of Glencoe. 

His frolics at Paris were of the most reckless character for a 
young nobleman. At the ambassador's own table he would 
occasionally send a servant to some one of the guests, to ask 
him to join in the Old Chevalier's health, though it was almost 
treason at that time to mention his name even. And again, 
when the windows at the embassy had been broken by a young 
English Jacobite, who was forthwith committed to Fort I'Evcque, 
the hare-brained marquis proposed, out of revenge, to break 
them a second time, and only abandoned the project because 
he could get no one to join him in it. Lord Stair, however, 
had too much sense to be offended at the follies of a boy of 
seventeen, even thougli that boy was the representative of a 
great English family ; he, probably, thought it would be better 
to recall him to his allegiance by kindness and advice, than, 
by resenting his behaviour, to drive him irrevocably to the 
opposite party; but he was doubtless considerably relieved 
when, after leading a wild life in the capital of France, spend- 
ing his money lavishly, and doing precisely everything which 
a young English nobleman ought not to do, my lord marquis 
took his departure in December, 1716. 

The political education he had received now made the un- 
stable youth ready and anxious to shine in the State ; but being 
yet under age, he could not, of course, take liis scat in the 



154 Zeal for the Orange Cause. 

House of Lords. Perhaps he was conscious of his own won- 
derful abilities ; perhaps, as Pope declares, he was thirsting for 
praise, and wished to display them ; certainly he was itching 
to become an orator, and as he could not sit in an English 
Parliament, he remembered that he had a peerage in Ireland, 
as Earl of Rathfernhame and Marquis of Catherlogh, and off 
he set to see if the Milesians would stand upon somewhat less 
ceremony. He was not disappointed there. ^His brilliant 
parts,' we are told by contemporary writers, but rather, we 
should think, his reputation for wit and eccentricity, ^ found 
favour in the eyes of Hibernian quicksilvers, and in spite of 
his years, he was admitted to the Irish House of Lords.' 

When a friend had reproached him, before he left France, 
with infidelity to the principles so long espoused by his family, 
he is reported to have replied, characteristically enough, that 
Mie had pawned his principles to Gordon, the Chevalier's 
banker, for a considerable sum, and, till he could repay him, 
hfe must be a Jacobite ; but when that was done, he would 
again return to the Whigs.' It is as likely as not that he bor- 
rowed from Gordon on the strength of the Chevalier's favour, 
for though a marquis in his own right, he was even at this 
period always in want of cash; and on the other hand, the 
speech, exhibiting the grossest want of any sense of honour, is 
in thorough keeping with his after-life. But whether he paid 
Gordon on his return to England — which is highly improbable 
— or whether he had not honour enough to keep his compact — 
which is extremely likely — there is no doubt that my lord mar- 
quis began, at this period, to qualify himself for the post of 
parish-weathercock to St. Stephens. 

His early defection to a man who, whether rightful heir or 
not, had that of romance in his history which is even now suffi- 
cient to make our young ladies thorough Jacobites' at heart, 
was easily to be excused, on the plea of youth and high 
spirit. The same excuse does not explain his rapid return to 
Whiggery — in which there is no romance at all — the moment 
he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords. There is only 
one way to explain the zeal with which he now advocated the 
Orange cause : he must have been either a very designing 



A Jacodite Hc7'o. 155 

knave, or a very unprincipled fool. As he gained nothing by 
the change but a dukedom for which he did not care, and as 
he cared for little else that the government could give him, we 
may acquit him of any very deep motives. On the other hand, 
his life and some of his letters show that, with a vast amount 
of bravado, he was sufficiently a coward. When supplicated, 
he w^as always obstinate; when neglected, always supplicant. 
Now it required some courage in those days to be a Jacobite. 
Perhaps he cared for nothing but to astonish and disgust every- 
body with the facility with which he could turn his coat, as a 
hippodromist does with the ease with which he changes his 
costume. He was a boy and a peer, and he would make pretty 
play of his position. He had considerable talents, and now, 
as he sat in the Irish House, devoted them entirely to the 
support of the government. 

For the next four years he was employed, on the one hand 
in political, on the other in profligate, life. He shone in both ; 
and was no less admired, by the wits of those days, for his 
speeches, his arguments, and his zeal, than for the utter disre- 
gard of public decency he displayed in his vices. Such a pro- 
mismg youth, adhering to the government, merited some mark 
of its esteem, and accordingly, before attaining the age of twenty- 
one, he was raised to a dukedom. Being of age, he took his 
seat in the English House of Lords, and had not been long 
there before he again turned coat, and came out in the light 
of a Jacobite hero. It was now- that he gathered most of his 
laurels. 

The Hanoverian monarch had been on the English throne 
some six years. Had the Chevalier's attempt occurred at this 
period, it may be doubted if it would not have been successful. 
The ' Old Pretender ' came too soon, the ' Young Pretender ' 
too late. At the period or the first attempt, the public had had 
no time to contrast Stuarts and Guelphs : at that of the second, 
they had forgotten the one and grown accustomed to the other ; 
but at the moment when our young duke appeared on the boards 
of the senate, the vices of the Hanoverians were beginning to 
draw down on them tlie contcmi)t of the educated and the 
ridicule of the vulgar ; and perhaps no moment could have been 



156 The Trial of A iter bury, 

more favourable for advocating a restoration of the Stuarts. If 
Wharton had had as much energy and consistency as he had 
talent and impudence, he might have done much towards that 
desirable, or undesirable end. 

The grand question at this time before the House was the 
trial of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, demanded by Sir 
Robert Walpole. The man had a spirit almost as restless as 
his defender. The son of a man who might have been the ori- 
ginal of the Vicar of Bray, he was very little of a poet, less of a 
priest, but a great deal of a politician. He was born in 1662, so 
that at this time he must have been nearly sixty years old. He 
had had by no means a hard life of it, for family interest, together 
with eminent talents, procured him one appointment after 
another, till he reached the bench at the age of fifty-one, in the 
reign of Anne. He had already distinguished himself in several 
ways, most, perhaps, by controversies with Hoadly, and by sundry 
high-church motions. But after his elevation, he displayed his 
principles more boldly, refused to sign the Declaration of the 
Bishops, which was somewhat servilely made to assure George 
the First of the fidelity of the Established Church, suspended 
the curate of Gravesend for three years because he allowed the 
Dutch to have a service performed in his church, and even, it 
is said, on the death of Anne, offered to proclaim King James 
in., and head a procession himself in his lawn sleeves. The 
end of this and other vagaries was, that in 1722, the Govern- 
ment sent him to the Tower, on suspicion of being connected 
with a plot in favour of the Old ChevaUer. The case excited 
no little attention, for it was long since a bishop had been 
charged with high treason ; it was added that his gaolers used 
him rudely; and, in short, public sympathy rather went along 
with him for a time. In March, 1723, a bill was presented to 
the Commons, for ^inflicting certain pains and penalties on 
Francis, Lord Bishop of Rochester, and it passed that House 
in April ; but when carried up to the Lords, a defence was re- 
solved on. The bill was read a third time on May 15th, and 
on that occasion the Duke of Wharton, then only twenty-four 
years old, rose and delivered a speech in favour of the bishop. 
This oration far more resembled that of a lawyer summing up 



Wliarioiis Defence of the Bishop. 157 

the evidence than of a pariiamentary orator enlarging on the 
general issue. It was remarkable for the clearness of its argu- 
ment, the wonderful memory of facts it displayed, and the 
ease and rapidity with which it annihilated the testimony of 
various witnesses examined before the House. It was mild and 
moderate, able and sufficient, but seems to have lacked all the 
enthusiasm we might expect from one who was afterwards so 
active a partisan of the Chevalier's cause. In short, striking as 
it was, it cannot be said to give the duke any claim to the title 
of a great orator ; it would rather prove that he might have 
made a first-rate lawyer. It shows, however, that had he chosen 
to apply himself diligently to politics, he might have turned out 
a great leader of the Opposition. 

Neither this speech nor the bishop's able defence saved him ;. 
and in the following month he was banished the kingdom, and 
passed the rest of his days in Paris. 

Wharton, however, was not content with the House as an 
arena of political agitation. He was now old enough to have 
matured his principles thoroughly, and he completely espoused 
the cause of the exiled family. He amused himself with agitat- 
ing throughout the country, influencing elections, and seeking 
popularity by becoming a member of the Wax-chandlers' Com- 
pany. It is a proof of his great abilities, so shamefully thrown 
away, that he now, during the course of eight months, issued a 
paper, called * The True Briton,' every Monday and Friday, 
written by himself, and containing varied and sensible argu- 
ments in support of his opinions, if not displaying any vast 
amount of original genius. This paper, on the model of * The 
Tatler,' ' The Spectator,' &c., had a considerable sale, and at- 
tained no little celebrity, so that the Duke of Wharton acquired 
the reputation of a literary man as well as of a political 
leader. 

But, whatever he might have been in either capacity, his dis- 
graceful life soon destroyed all hope of success in them. He 
was now an acknowledged wit about town, and what was then 
almost a recognized concomitant of that character, an acknow- 
ledged profligate. He scattered his large fortune in the most 
reckless and foolish manner : though married, his moral con- 



158 Hypoadtical Signs of Penitence. 

duct was as bad as that of any bachelor of the day : and such 
was his extravagance and open Ucentiousness, that, having 
wasted a princely revenue, he was soon caught in the meshes of 
Chancery, which very sensibly vested his fortune in the hands of 
triY^tees, and compelled him to be satisfied with an income of 
yt\velve hundred pounds a year. 

The young rascal now showed hypocritical signs of penitence 
— he was always an adept in that line — and protested he would 
go abroad and live quietly, till his losses should be retrieved. 
There is litde doubt that, under this laudable design, he con- 
cealed one of attaching himself closer to the Chevalier party, 
and even espousing the faith of that unfortunate prince, or pre- 
tender, whichever he may have been. He set off for Vienna, 
leaving his wife behind to die, in April, 1726. He had long 
since quarrelled with her, and treated her with cruel neglect, 
and at her death he was not likely to be much afflicted. It is 
said, that, after that event, a ducal family offered him a daughter 
and large fortune in marriage, and that the Duke of Wharton 
declined the offer, because the latter was to be tied up, and he 
could not conveniently tie up the former. However this may 
be, he remained a widower for a short time : we may be sure, 
not long. 

The hypocrisy of going abroad to retrench was not long un- 
discovered. The fascinating scapegrace seems to have de- 
lighted in playing on the credulity of others ; and Walpole 
relates that, on the eve of the day on which he delivered his 
famous speech for Atterbury, he sought an interview with the 
minister. Sir Robert Walpole, expressed great contrition at 
having espoused the bishop's cause hitherto, and a determina- 
tion to speak against him the following day. The minister was 
taken in, and at the duke's request, supplied him with all the 
main arguments, pro and con. The deceiver, having got these 
well into his brain — one of the most retentive — repaired to his 
London haunts, passed the night in drinking, and the next day 
produced all the arguments he had digested, in the bishofs 
favour. 

At Vienna he was well received, and carried out his private 
mission successfully, but was too restless to stay in one place, 



A Fresh Love. 159 

and soon set off for Madrid. Tired now of politics, he took a 
turn at love. He was a poet after a fashion, for the pieces he 
has left are not very good : he was a fine gentleman, always 
spending more money than he had, and is said to have been 
handsome. His portraits do not give us this impression : the 
features are not very regular ; and though not coarse, are cer- 
tainly not refined. The mouth, somewhat sensual, is still much 
firmer than his character would lead us to expect ; the nose 
sharp at the point, but cogitative at the nostrils ; the eyes long 
but not large ; while the raised brow has all that openness which 
he displayed in the indecency of his vices, but not in any 
honesty in his political career. In a word, the face is not 
attractive. Yet he is described as having had a brilliant com- 
plexion, a lively, varying expression, and a charm of person and 
manner that was quite irresistible. Whether on this account, 
or for his talents and wit, which were really shining, his new 
Juliet fell as deeply in love with him as he with her. 

She was maid of honour — and a highly honourable maid — to 
the Queen of Spain. The Irish regiments long employed in 
the Spanish service had become more or less naturalized in that 
country, which accounts for the great number of thoroughly 
Milesian names still to be found there, some of them, as 
O'Donnell, owned by men of high distinction. Among other 
officers who had settled with their families in the Peninsula was 
a Colonel O'Byrne, who, like most of his countrymen there, 
died penniless, leaving his widow with a pension and his 
daughter without a sixpence. It can well be imagined that an 
offer from an English duke was not to be sneezed at by either 
Mrs. or Miss O'Byrne ; but there were some grave obstacles to 
the match. The duke was a Protestant. But what of tliat ? — 
he had never been encumbered with religion, nor even with a 
decent observance of its institutions, for it is said tliat, when in 
England, at his country seat, he liad, to show how little he cared 
for respectability, made a point of having the hounds out on a 
Sunday morning. He was not going to lose a pretty girl for 
the sake of a faith with which he had got disgusted ever since 
his Huguenot tutor tried to make him a sober Christian. He 
had turned coat in politics, and would now try his weathercock 



i6o Very Trying. 

capabilities at religion. Nothing like variety, so Romanist he 
became. 

But this was not all : his friends on the one hand objected 
to hi& marrying a penniless girl, and hers, on the other, warned 
her of his disreputable character. But when two people have 
made up their minds to be one, such trifles as these are of no 
consequence. A far more trying obstacle was the absolute re- 
fusal of her Most Catholic Majesty to allow her maid of honour 
to marry the duke. 

It is a marvel that after the life of dissipation he had led, 
this man should have retained the power of loving at all But 
everything about him was extravagant, and now that he enter- 
tained a virtuous attachment, he was as wild in it as he had 
been reckless in less respectable connections. He must have 
been sincere at the time, for the queen's refusal was followed 
by a fit of depression that brought on a low fever. The queen 
heard of it, and, touched by the force of his devotion, sent him 
a cheering message. The moment was not to be lost, and, in 
spite of his weak state, he hurried to court, threw himself at 
her Majesty's feet, and swore he must have his lady-love or die. 
Thus pressed, the queen was forced to consent, but warned 
him that he would repent of it. The marriage took place, and 
the couple set off to Rome. 

Here the Chevalier again received him with open arms, and 

took the opportunity of displaying his imaginary sovereignty 

by bestowing on him the Order of the Garter — a politeness the 

duke returned by wearing while there the no less unrecognised 

title of Duke of Northumberland, which 'His Majesty' had 

formerly conferred on him. But James III., though no saint, 

had more respect for decent conduct than his father and uncle; 

the duke ran off into every species of excess, got into debt as 

usual — 

* When Wharton's just, and learns to pay his debts, 
And reputation dwells at Mother Brett's, 
* * * * 

Then, Celia, shall my constant passion cease, 
And my poor suff' ring heart shall be at peace,* 1 

says a satirical poem of the day, called ^ The Duke of Whar- 
ton's Wheni — was faithless to the wife he had lately been dying 



Military Glory at Gibraltar. i6i 

for ; and in short, such a thorough blackguard, that not even 
the Jacobites could tolerate him, and they turned him out of 
the Holy City till he should learn not to bring dishonour on 
the court of their fictitious sovereign. 

The duke was not the man to be much ashamed of himself, 
though his poor wife may now have begun to think her late 
mistress in the right, and he was probably glad of an excuse 
for another change. At this time, 1727, the Spaniards were 
determined to wrest Gibraltar from its English defenders, and 
were sending thither a powerful army under the command 
of Los Torres. The Duke had tried many trades with more 
or less success, and now thought that a little military glory 
would tack on well to his highly honourable biography. At 
any rate there was novelty in the din of war, and for novelty 
he would go anyAvhere. It mattered little that he should fight 
against his own king and own countrymen : he was not half 
blackguard enough yet, he may have thought ; he had played 
traitor for some time, he would now play rebel outright — the 
game zvas worth the candle. 

So what does my lord duke do but write a letter (like the 
Chinese behind their mud-walls, he was always bold enough 
when well secured under the protection of the post, and was 
more absurd in ink even than in action) to the King of Spain, 
offering him his services as a volunteer against ' Gib.' Whether 
his Most Catholic Majesty thought him a traitor, a madman, or 
a devoted partisan of his own, does not appear, for without 
waiting for an answer — waiting was always too dull work for 
Wharton — he and his wife set off for the camp before Gibraltar, 
introduced themselves to the Conde in Command, were re- 
ceived with all the honour — let us say honours — due to a duke — • 
and established themselves comfortably in the ranks of the 
enemy of England. But all the duke's hopes of prowess were 
blighted. He had good opportunities. The Conde de los 
Torres made him his aide-de-camp, and sent him daily into the 
trenches to see how matters went on. When a defence of a 
certain Spanish outwork was resolved uj)on, the duke, from his 
rank, was chosen for the command. Yet in tlie trendies he 
got no worse wound than a shght one on the foot from a sj^Hnlcr 



1 63 ' Uncle Horace! 

of a shell, and this he afterwards made an excuse for not fight- 
ing a duel with swords ; and as to the outwork, the English 
abandoned the attack, so that there was no glory to be found 
in the defence. He soon grew weary of such inglorious and 
rather dirty work as visiting trenches before a stronghold; and 
well he might ; for if there be one thing duller than another 
and less satisfactory, it must be digging a hole out of which to 
kill your brother mortals \ and thinking he should amuse himself 
better at the court, he set off for Madrid. Here the king, by way 
of reward for his brilliant services in doing nothing, made him 
coIo7iel-aggregate — v/hatever that may be — of an Irish regiment ; 
a very poor aggregate, we should think. But my lord duke 
wanted something livelier than the command of a band of 
Hispaniolized Milesians ; and having found the military career 
somewhat uninteresting, wished to return to that of politics. 
He remembered with gusto the frolic life of the Holy City, and 
the political excitement in the Chevalier's court, and sent off a 
letter to ^His Majesty James III.,' expressing, like a rusticated 
Oxonian, his penitence for having been so naughty the last 
time, and offering to come and be very good again. It is to 
the praise of the Chevalier de St. George that he had worldly 
wisdom enough not to trust the gay penitent. He was tired, as 
everybody else was, of a man who could stick to nothing, and 
did not seem to care about seeing him again. Accordingly, he 
replied in true kingly style, blaming him for having taken up 
arms against their common country, and telling him in polite 
language — as a policeman does a riotous drunkard — that he 
had better go home. The duke thought so too, v/as not at all 
offended at^the letter, and set off, by way of returning towards 
his Penates, for Paris, where he arrived in May, 1728. 

Horace Walpole — ^not the Horace — but ^ Uncle Horace,' or 
' old Horace,' as he was called, was then ambassador to the 
court of the Tuileries. Mr. Walpole was one of the Houghton 1 
• Hot,' a brother of the famous minister Sir Robert, and though 
less celebrated, almost as able in his line. He had distin- 
guished himself in various diplomatic appointments, in Spain, 
at Hanover and the Hague, and having successfully tackled 
Cardinel Fleury, the successor of the Richelieus and Mazarins 



i 



Wharton to * Uncle Horace! 163 

at Paris, he was now in high favour at home. In after years 
he was celebrated for his duel with Chetwynd, who, when 
* Uncle Horace' had in the House expressed a hope that the 
question might be carried, had exclaimed, ' I hope to see you 
hanged first !' * You hope to see me hanged first, do you ?* 
cried Horace, with all the ferocity of the Walpoles \ and there- 
upon, seizing him by the most prominent feature of his face, 
shook him violently. This was matter enough for a brace of 
swords and coffee for four, and Mr. Chetwynd had to repent 
of his remark after being severely wounded. In those days 
our honourable House of Commons was as much an arena of 
wild beasts as the i^ r »ilLfiLclii SLualL uf lO-d ay. 

To this minister our noble duke wrote a hypocritical letter, 
which, as it shows how the man could A\Tite penitently, is worth 
transcribing. 

' Lions, June 28, 1728. 

^Sir, — Your excellency will be surpris'd to receive a letter 
from me; but the clemency with which the govemm.ent of 
England has treated me, which is in a great measure owing to 
your brother's regard to my father's memory, makes me hope 
that you will give me leave to express my gratitude for it. 

'Since his present majesty's accession to the throne I have 
absolutely refused to be concerned with the Pretender or any 
^ of his affairs ; and during my stay in Italy have behaved my- 
self in a manner that Dr. Peters, Mr. Godolphin, and Mr. Mills 
can declare to be consistent with my duty to the present king. 
I was forc'd to go to Italy to get out of Spain, where, if my 
true design had been known, I should have been treated a little 
severely 

* I am coming to Paris to put myself entirely under your 
excellency's protection; and hope that Sir Robert Walpole's 
good-nature will prompt him to save a family which his gene- 
rosity induced him to spare. If your excellency would permit 
me to wait upon you for an hour, I am certain you would be 
convinc'd of the sincerity of my repentance for my former mad- 
ness, would become an advocate with liis majesty to grant mc 
his mo3t gracious pardon, which it is m.y comfort I J-hall never 

II — 2 



164 The Ditkes Impudence, 

be required to purchase by any step unworthy of a man .of 
honour. I do not intend, in case of the king's allowing me to 
pass the evening of my days under the shadow of his royal 
protection, to see England for some years, but shall remain 
in France or Germany, as my friends shall advise, and enjoy 
country sports till all former stories are buried in oblivion. I 
beg of your excellency to let me receive your orders at Paris, 
which I will send to your hostel to receive. The Dutchess of 
Wharton, who is with me, desires leave to wait on Mrs. Wal- 
pole, if you think proper. 

'\ am, &c.* 

After this, the ambassador could do no less than receive him; 
but he was somewhat disgusted when on leaving him the duke 
frankly told him — forgetting all about his penitent letter, pro- 
bably, or too reckless to care for it — that he was going to dine 
with the Bishop of Rochester — Atterbury himself, then living 
in Paris — whose society was interdicted to any subject of King 
George. The duke, with his usual folly, touched on other 
subjects equally dangerous, his visit to Rome, and his conver- 
sion to Romanism ; and, in short, disgusted the cautious Mr. 
Walpole. There is something delightfully impudent about all 
these acts of Wharton's ; and had he only been a clown at 
Drury Lane instead of an English nobleman, he must have 
been successful. As it is, when one reads of the petty hatred 
and humbug of those days, when liberty of speech was as un- 
known as any other liberty, one cannot but admire the impu- 
dence of his Grace of Wharton, and wish that most dukes, 
without being as profligate, would be as free-spoken. 

With six hundred pounds in his pocket, our young Lothario 
now set up house at Rouen, with an establishment * equal,' say 
the old-school writers, ^ to his position, but not to his means.' 
In other words, he undertook to live in a style for which he 
Gould not pay. Twelve hundred a year may be enough for a 
duke, as for any other man, but not for one who considers a 
legion of servants a necessary appendage to his position. My 
lord duke, who was a good French scholar, soon found an • 
ample number of friends and acquaintances, and not being 



HigJi Treason, 165 

particular about either, managed to get through his half-years 
income in a few weeks. Evil consequence : he was assailed 
by duns. French duns know nothing about forgiving debtors ; 
* your money first, and then my pardon,' is their motto. My 
lord duke soon found this out. Still he had an income, and 
could pay them all off in time. So he drank and was merry, 
till one fine day came a disagreeable piece of news, which 
startled him considerably. The government at home had 
heard of his doings, and determined to arraign him for high 
treason. 

He could expect little else, for had he not actually taken up 
arms against his sovereign ? 

Now Sir Robert Walpole was, no doubt, a vulgarian. He 
was not a man to love or sympathise with ; but he was good- 
natured at bottom. Our ^ frolic grace ' had reason to acknow- 
ledge this. He could not complain of harshness in any mea- 
sures taken against him, and he had certainly no claim to con- 
sideration from the government he had treated so ill. Yet Sir 
Robert was willing to give him every chance ; and so far did 
he go, that he sent over a couple of friends to him to induce 
him only to ask pardon of the king, with a promise that it 
would be granted. For sure the Duke of Wharton's character 
was anomalous. The same man who had more than once 
humiliated himself when unasked, who had written to Walpole's 
brother the letter we have read, would not now, when entreated 
to do so, write a few lines to that minister to ask mercy. Nay, 
when the gentleman in question offered to be content even 
with a letter from the duke's valet, he refused to allow the man 
to write. Some people may admire what they will believe to 
•be firmness, but when we review the duke's character and sub- 
sequent acts, we cannot attribute this refusal to anything but 
obstinate pride. The consequence of this folly was a stoppage 
•of supplies, for as he was accused of high treason, his estate 
■Avas of course sequestrated. He revenged himself by writing 
a paper which was published in ^Mist's Journal,' and which, 
under the cover of a Persian talc, contained a species of libel 
on the government. 

His position was now far from enviable; and, assailed by 



1 66 Wharton s Ready Wit. 

duns, he had no resource but to humble himself, not before 
those he had offended, but before the Chevalier, to whom he 
wrote in his distress, and who sent him ;^2,ooo, which he soon 
frittered away in follies. This gone, the duke begged and 
borrowed, for there are some people such fools that they would 
rather lose a thousand pounds to a peer than give sixpence to 
a pauper, and many a tale was told of the artful manner in 
which his grace managed to cozen his friends out of a louis or 
two. His ready wit generally saved him. 

Thus on one occasion an Irish toady invited him to dinner : 
the duke talked of his wardrobe, then sadly defective ; what 
suit should he wear? The Hibernian suggested black velvet. 
* Could you recommend a tailor?' * Certainly.' Snip came, 
an expensive suit was ordered, put on, and the dinner taken. 
In due course the tailor called for his money. The duke was 
not a bit at a loss, though he had but a few francs to his name. 
' Honest man,' quoth he, ' you mistake the matter entirely. 
Carry the bill to Sir Peter ; for know that whenever I consent 
to wear another man's livery, my master pays for the clothes,* 
and inasmuch as the dinner-giver was an Irishman, he did 
actually discharge the account. 

At other times he would give a sumptuous entertainment, 
and in one way or another induce his guests to pay for it. He 
was only less adroit in coining excuses than Theodore Hook, 
and had he lived a century later, we might have a volume full 
of anecdotes to give of his ways and no means. Meanwhile 
his unfortunate duchess was living on the charity of friends, 
while her lord and master, when he could get anyone to pay for 
a band, was serenading young ladies. Yet he was jealous 
enough of his wife at times, and once sent a challenge to a 
Scotch nobleman, simply because some silly friend asked him 
if he had forbidden his wife to dance with the lord. He went 
all the way to Flanders to meet his opponent ; but, perhaps 
fortunately for the duke. Marshal Berwick arrested the Scotch- 
man, and the duel never came off. 

Whether he felt his end approaching, or whether he was sick 
of vile pleasures which he had recklessly pursued from the age 
of fifteen, he now, though only thirty years of age, retired for 



L ast Extremities, i Gj 

a lime to a convent, and was looked on as a penitent and de- 
votee. Penury, doubtless, cured him in a measure, and 
poverty, the porter of the gates of heaven, warned him to look 
forward beyond a life he had so shamefully misused. But it 
was only a temporary repentance ; and when he left the re- 
ligious house, he again rushed furiously into every kind of dis- 
sipation. 

At length, utterly reduced to the last extremities, he be- 
thought himself of his colonelcy in Spain, and determined to 
set out to join his regiment. The following letter from a friend 
who accompanied him will best show what circumstances he 
was in : — 

* Paris, June i, 1729. 

' Dear Sir, — I am just returned from the Gates of Death, to 
return you Thanks for your last kind Letter of Accusations, 
which I am persuaded was intended as a seasonable Help to 
my Recollection, at a Time that it was necessary for me to send 
an Inquisitor Genr^ral into my Conscience, to examine and 
settle all the Abuses that ever were committed in that litde 
Court of Equity ; but I assure you, your long Letter did not 
lay so much my Faults as my Misfortunes before me, which be- 
lieve me, dear , have fallen as heavy and as thick upon me 

as the Shower of Hail upon us two in E Forest, and has 

left me much at a Loss which way to turn myself. The Pilot 
of the Ship I embarked in, who industriously ran upon every 
Rock, has at last split the Vessel, and so much of a sudden, 
that the whole Crew, I mean his Domesticks, are all left to 
swim for their Lives, without one friendly Plank to assist them 
to Shore. In short, he left me sick, in Debt, and without a 
Penny; but as I begin to recover, and have a little time to 
Think, I can't help considering myself, as one whisk'd up be- 
hind a Witch upon a Broomstick, and hurried over Mountains 
and Dales through confus'd Woods and thorny Thickets, and 
when the Charm is ended, and the poor Wretch dropp'd in a 
Dcsart, he can give no other Account of his enchanted Travels, 
but that he is much fatigued in Body and Mind, his Cloaths 
torn, and worse in all other Circumstances, without being of 
Uic least Service to himself or any body else. But I will follow 



1 68 His Last Joitrney to Spain. 

your Advice with an active Resolution, to retrieve my bad For- 
tune, and almost a Year miserably misspent. 

'But notwithstanding what I have suffered, and what my 
Brother Mad-man has done to undo himself, and every body 
who was so unlucky to have the least Concern with him, I 
could not but be movingly touch'd at so extraordinary a Vicissi- 
tude of Fortune, to see a great Man fallen from that shining 
Light, in which I beheld him in the House of Lords, to such a 
Degree of Obscurity, that I have observ'd the meanest Com- 
moner here decline, and the Few he would sometimes fasten 
on, to be tired of his Company ; for you know he is but a bad 
Orator in his Cups, and of late he has been but seldom sober. 

^ A week before he left Paris, he was so reduced, that he had 
not one single Crown at Command, and was forc'd to thrust in 
with any Acquaintance for a Lodging ; Walsh and I have had 
him by Turns, all to avoid a Crowd of Duns, which he had of 
all Sizes, from Fourteen hundred Livres to Four, who hunted 
him so close, that he was forced to retire to some of the neigh- 
bouring Villages for Safety. I, sick as I was, hurried about 
Paris to raise Money, and to St. Germain's to get him Linen ; 
I bought him one Shirt and a Cravat, which with 500 Livres^ 
his whole Stock, he and his Duchess, attended by one Servant, 
set out for Spain. All the News I have heard of them since is 
that a Day or two after, he sent for Captain Brierly, and two or 
three of his Domesticks, to follow him ; but none but the Cap- 
tain obey'd the Summons. Where they are now, I can't tell ; 
but fear they must be in great Distress by this Time, if he has 
no other Supplies ; and so ends my Melancholy Story. 

' I am, &c.' 

Still his good-humour did not desert him; he joked about 
their poverty on the road, and wrote an amusing account of 
their journey to a friend, winding up with the well-known 
lines : — 

• Be kind to my remains, and oh ! defend, 
Against your judgment, your departed friend.' 

His mind was as vigorous as ever, in spite of the waste of 
many debauches; and when recommended to make a new 



His Death in a Bemardinc Conve7it, 169 

translation of ' Telemachus ;' he actually devoted one whole day 
to the work ; the next he forgot all about it. In the same 
manner he began a play on the story of Mary Queen of Scot?, 
and Lady M. W. Montagu wrote an epilogue for it, but the 
piece never got beyond a few scenes. His genius, perhaps, was 
not for either poetry or the drama. His mind was a keen, 
clear one, better suited to argument and to grapple tough po- 
lemic subjects. Had he but been a sober man, he m^ight have 
been a fair, if not a great writer. The * True Briton,' with many 
faults of license, shows what his capabilities were. His absence 
of moral sense may be guessed from his poem on the preaching 
of Atterbury, in which is a parallel almost blasphemous. 

At length he reached Bilboa and his regiment, and had to live 
on the meagre pay of eighteen pistoles a month. The Duke 
of Ormond, then an exile, took pity on his wife, and sup- 
ported her for a time : she afterwards rejoined her mother at 
Madrid. 

Meanwhile, the year 1730 brought about a salutary change 
in the duke's morals. His health was fast giving way from the 
effects of divers excesses; and there is nothing like bad health 
for purging a bad soul. The end of a misspent life was fast 
drawing near, and he could only keep it up by broth with eggs 
beaten up in it. He lost the use of his limbs, but not of his 
gaiety. In the mountains of Catalonia he met with a mineral 
spring which did him some good ; so much, in fact, that he was 
able to rejoin his regiment for a time. A fresh attack sent him 
back to the waters ; but on his way he was so violently attacked 
that he was forced to stop at a little village. Here he found 
himself without the means of going farther, and in the worst 
state of health. The monks of a Bernardine convent took pity 
on him and received him into their house. He grew worse 
and worse ; and in a week died on the 31st of May, without a 
friend to pity or attend him, among strangers, and at the early 
age of thirty-two. 

Thus ended the life of one of the cleverest fools that have 
ever disgraced our peerage. 



LORD HERVEY, 



George II. arriving from Hanover. — His Meeting with the Queen. — Lady 
Suffolk. — Queen Carohne. — Sir Robert Walpole. — Lord Hervey. — A set of 
Fine Gentlemen. — ^An Eccentric Race. — Carr, Lord Hervey. — A Fragile 
Boy. — Description of George II. 's Family. — Anne Brett. — ^A Bitter Cup. — 
The Darhng of the Family. — Evenings at St. James's. — Frederick, Prince 
of Wales. — Amelia Sophia Walmoden. — Poor Queen Caroline ! — Nocturnal 
Diversions of Maids of Honour. — Neighbour George's Orange Chest. — 
Mary Lepel, Lady Heivey.- — Rivalry. — Hervey's Intimacy with Lady Mary. 
— Relaxations of the Royal Household. — Bacon's Opinion of Twickenham. 
— ^A Visit to Pope's Villa. — The Little Nightingale. — The Essence of Small 
Talk. — Hervey's Affectation and Effeminacy. — Pope's Quarrel with Hervey 
and Lady Mary. — Hervey's Duel with Pulteney. — 'The Death of Lord 
Hervey : a Drama.' — Queen Caroline's last Drawing-room. — Her Illness 
and Agony. — A Painful Scene. — ^The Truth discovered. — The Queen's 
Dying Bequests. — The King's Temper. — ^Archbishop Potter is sent for. — 
The Duty of Reconciliation. — The Death of Queen Carohne. — A Change in 
Hervey's Life. — Lord Hervey's Death. — ^Want of Christianity. — Memoirs of 
his Own Time. 

HE village of Kensington was disturbed in its sweet 
repose one day, more than a century ago, by the 
rumbling of a ponderous coach and six, with four 
outriders and two equerries kicking up the dust ; whilst a small 
body of heavy dragoons rode solemnly after the huge vehicle. 
It waded, with inglorious struggles, through a deep mire of 
mud, between the Palace and Hyde Park, until the cortege 
entered Kensington Park, as the gardens were then called, and 
began to track the old road that led to the red-brick structure 
to which William III. had added a higher story, built by Wren. 
There are two roads by which coaches could approach the 
house : ' one,* as the famous John, Lord Hervey, wrote to his 
mother, ^ so convex, the other so concave, that, by this extreme 
of faults, they agree in the common one of being, like the high 
road, impassable.' The rumbling coach, with its plethoric 
steeds, toils slowly on, and reaches the dismal pile, of which no 
association is so precious as that of its having been the birth- 




George 11. Arriving^from Hanover, 1 71 

place of our loved Victoria Regina. All around, as the em- 
blazoned carriage impressively veers round into the grand 
entrance, savours of William and Mary, of Anne, of Bishop 
Burnet and Ilarley, Atterbury and Bolingbroke. But those 
were pleasant days compared to those of the second George, 
whose return from Hanover in this mountain of a coach is now 
described. 

The panting steeds are gracefully curbed by the state coach- 
man in his scarlet livery, with his cocked-hat and gray wig 
underneath it: now the horses are foaming and reeking as if 
they had come from the world's end to Kensington, and yet 
they have only been to meet King George on his entrance into 
London, which he has reached from Helvoetsluys, on his way 
from Hanover, in time, as he expects, to spend his birthday 
among his English subjects. 

It is Sunday, and repose renders the retirement of Kensing- 
ton and its avenues and shades more sombre than ever. 
Suburban retirement is usually so. It is noon ; and the inmates 
of Kensington Palace are just coming forth from the chapel in 
the palace. The coach is now stopping, and the equerries are 
at hand to offer their respectful assistance to the diminutive 
figure that, in full Field-marshal regimentals, a cocked-hat stuck 
crosswise on his head, a sword dangling even down to his 
heels, ungraciously heeds them not, but stepping down, as the 
great iron gates are thrown open to receive him, looks neither 
like a king or a gentleman. A thin, worn face, in which weak- 
ness and passion are at once pictured ; a form buttoned and 
padded up to the chin ; high Hessian boots without a \vrinkle ; 
a sword and a swagger, no more constituting him the military 
character than the 'your majesty' from every lip can make a 
poor thing of clay a king. Such was George H. : brutal, even 
to his submissive wife. Stunted by nature, he was insignificant 
in form, as he was petty in character; not a trace of royalty 
could be found in that silly, tempestuous i)hysiognomy, with its 
hereditary small head : not an atom of it in his made-up, paltry 
little presence; still less in his bearing, language, or qualities. 

The queen and her court have come from chnpcl, to meet 
the royal absentee at the great gate : the consort, who was to 



1/2 His Meeting with the Queen, 

his gracious majesty like an elder sister rather than a wife, 
bends down, not to his knees, but yet she bends, 'to kiss the 
hand of her royal husband. She is a fair, fat woman, no longer 
young, scarcely comely ; but with a charm of manners, a com- 
posure, and a savoir faire that causes one to regard her as 
mated, not matched to the little creature in that cocked-hat, 
which he does not take off even when she stands before him. 
The pair, nevertheless, embrace : it is a triennial ceremony 
performed when the king goes or returns from Hanover, but 
suffered to lapse at other times; but the condescension is too 
great : and Caroline ends, where she began : ^gluing her lips 
to the ungracious hand held out to her in evident ill-humour. 

They turn, and walk through the court, then up the grand 
staircase, into the queen's apartment. The king has been 
swearing all the way at England and the English, because he 
has been obliged to return from Hanover, where the German 
mode of life and new mistresses were more agreeable to him 
than the English customs and an old wife. He displays, there- 
fore, even on this supposed happy occasion, one of the worst 
outbreaks of his insufferable temper, of which the queen is the 
first victim. All the company in the palace, both ladies and 
gentlemen, are ordered to enter : he talks to them all, but to 
the queen he says not a word. 

She is attended by Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady Sundon, 
whose lively manners and great good temper and good will — ? 
lent out like leasehold to all, till she saw what their friendship 
might bring, — ■ are always useful at these tristes reiicontres, 
Mrs. Clayton is the amalgamating substance between chemical 
agents which have, of themselves, no cohesion ; she covers 
with address what is awkward ; she smooths down with some- 
thing pleasant what is rude; she turns off — and her office 
in that respect is no sinecure at that court — what is indecent, 
so as to keep the small majority of the company who have 
respectable notions in good humour. To the right of Queen- 
Caroline stands another of her majesty's household, to whom 
the most deferential attention is paid by all present ; neverthe- 
less, she is queen of the court, but not the queen of the royal 
master of that court. It is Lady Suffolk, the mistress of King 




SCENE BEFOKE KENHINUTON I'ALACE (JICORriE II. AND t/l KK.N CA KOM NK. 

Set' p. 17 



Lady Sziffolk 173 

George IL, and long mistress of the robes to Queen Caroline. 
She is now past the bloom of youth, but her attractions are not 
in their wane ; but endured until she had attained her seventy- 
ninth year. Of a middle height, well made, extremely fair, 
with very fine light hair, she attracts regard from her sweet, 
fresh face, which had in it a comeliness independent of regu- 
larity of feature. According to her invariable custom, she is 
dressed with simplicity ; her silky tresses are drawn somewhat 
back from her snowy forehead, and fall in long tresses on her 
shoulders, not less transparently white. She wears a gown of 
rich silk, opening in front to display a chemisette of the most 
delicate cambric, which is scarcely less delicate than her skin. 
Her slender arms are without bracelets, and her taper fingers 
without rings. As she stands behind the queen, holding her 
majesty's fan and gloves, she is obliged, from her deafness, to 
lean her fair face with its sunny hair first to the right side, then 
to the left, with the helpless air of one exceedingly deaf — for 
she had been afflicted with that infirmity for some years : yet 
one cannot say whether her appealing looks, which seem to 
say, * Enlighten me if you please,' — and the sort of softened 
manner in which she accepts civilities which she scarcely compre- 
hends do not enhance the wonderful charm which drew every 
one who knew her towards this frail, but passionless woman. 

The queen forms the centre of the group. Caroline, 
daughter of the Marquis of Brandenburgh-Anspach, notwith- 
standing her residence in England of many years, notwithstand- 
ing her having been, at the era at wliich this biography begins, 
ten years its queen — is still German in every attribute. She 
retains, in her fair and comely face, traces of having been hand- 
some ; but her skin is deeply scarred by the cruel small-pox. 
She is now at that time of life when Sir Robert Walpole even 
thought it expedient to reconcile her to no longer being an 
object of attraction to her royal consort. As a woman, she 
has ceased to be attractive to a man of the character of George 
II. ; but, as a queen, she is still, as far as manners are con- 
cerned, incomparable. As she turns to address various mem- 
bers of the assembly, her styje is full of sweetness as well as 
of courtesy, yet on other occasions she is majesty itself. The 



174 ^i^ Robert Walpole. 

tones of her voice, with its still foreign accent, are most cap- 
tivating ; her eyes penetrate into every countenance on which 
they rest. Her figure, plump and matronly, has lost much of 
its contour ; but is well suited for her part. Majesty in women 
should be embonpoint. Her hands are beautifully white, and 
faultless in shape. The king always admired her bust ; and it 
is, therefore, by royal command, tolerably exposed. Her fair 
hair is upraised in full short curls over her brow : her dress is 
rich, and distinguished in that respect from that of the Countess 
of Suffolk. — ' Her good Howard' — as she was wont to call her, 
when, before her elevation to the peerage, she was lady of the 
bedchamber to Caroline, had, when in that capacity, been often 
subjected to servile offices, which the queen, though apologizing 
in the sweetest manner, delighted to make her perform. ' My 
good Howard' having one day placed a handkerchief on the 
back of her royal mistress, the king, who half worshipped his 
intellectual wife, pulled it off in a passion, saying, * Because 
you have an ugly neck yourself, you hide the queen's!' All, 
however, that evening was smooth as ice, and perhaps as cold 
also. The company are quickly dismissed, and the king, who 
has scarcely spoken to the queen, retires to his closet, where 
he is attended by the subservient Caroline, and by two other 
persons. 

Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister, has accompanied the 
king in his carriage, from the very entrance of London, where 
tlie famous statesman met him. He is now the privileged com- 
panion of their majesties, in their seclusion for the rest of the 
evening. His cheerful face, in its full evening disguise of wig 
and tie, his invariable good humour, his frank manners, his 
wonderful sense, his views, more practical than elevated, suffi- 
ciently account for the influence which this celebrated minister 
obtained over Queen Caroline, and the readiness of King George 
to submit to the tie. But Sir Robert's great source of ascend- 
ancy was his temper. Never was there in the annals of our 
country a minister so free of access : so obliging in giving, so 
unoffending when he refused ; so indulgent and kind to those 
dependent on him ; so generous,, so faithful to his friends, so 
forgiving to his foes. This was his character under one phase : 



Lord Hervey. 175 

even his adherents sometimes blamed his easiness of temper i 
the impossibihty in his nature to cherish the remembrance of a 
wrong, or even to be roused by an insult. But, whilst such were 
the amiable traits of his character, history has its lists of accu- 
sations against him for corruption of the most shameless descrip- 
tion. The end of this veteran statesman's career is well known. 
The fraudulent contracts which he gave, the peculation and 
profusion of the secret service money, his undue influence at 
elections, brought around his later life a storm, from which he 
retreated into the Upper House, when created Earl of Orford. 
It was before this timely retirement from office that he burst 
forth in these words : ' I oppose nothing ; give in to everything; 
am said to do everything ; and to answer for everything ; and 
yet, God knows, I dare not do what I think is right.' 

With his public capacity, however, we have not here to do : 
it IS in his character of a courtier that we view him following 
the queen and king. His round, complacent face, with his small 
glistening eyes, arched eyebrows, and with a mouth ready to 
break out aloud into a laugh, are all subdued into a respectful 
gravity as he listens to King George grumbling at the necessity 
for his return home. No English cook could dress a dinner ; 
no English cook could select a dessert ; no English coachman 
could drive ; nor English jockey ride ; no Englishman — such 
were his habitual taunts — knew how to come into a room ; no 
Englishwoman understood how to dress herself The men, he 
said, talked of nothing but their dull politics, and the women 
of nothing but their ugly clothes. Whereas, in Hanover, all 
these things were at perfection : men were patterns of polite- 
ness and gallantry ; women, of beauty, wit, and entertainment. 
His troops there were the bravest in the world ; his manufac- 
turers the most ingenious ; his people the happiest : in Hanover, 
in short, plenty reigned, riches flowed, arts flourished, magnifi- 
cence abounded, everything was in abundance that could make 
a prince great, or a peoi)le blessed. 

There was one standing behind the queen who listened to 
these outbreaks of the king's bilious temper, as he called it, 
with an apparently respectful solicitude, but with the deepest 
disgust in his heart. A slender, elegant figure, in a court suit, 



/ 



176 A Set of Fine Gentlemen. 

faultlessly and carefully perfect in that costume, stands behind 
the queen's chair. It is Lord Hervey. His lofty forehead, his 
features, which have a refinement of character, his well-turned 
mouth, and full and dimpled chin, form his claims to that 
beauty which won the heart of the lovely Mary Lepel ; whilst 
the somewhat thoughtful and pensive expression of his physiog- 
nomy, v/hen in repose, indicated the sympathising, yet, at the 
same time, satirical character of one who won the affections, 
perhaps unconsciously, of the amiable Princess Caroline, the 
favourite daughter of George II. 

A general air of languor, ill concealed by the most studied 
artifice of countenance, and even of posture, characterizes 
Lord Hervey. He would have abhorred robustness; for he 
belonged to the clique then called Maccaronis ; a set of fine 
gentlemen, of whom the present world would not be worthy, 
tricked out for show, fitted only to drive out fading majesty in 
a stage coach ; exquisite in every personal appendage, too fine 
for the common usages of society; point-device^ not only in 
every curl and ruffle, but in every attitude and step ; men with 
full satin roses on their shining shoes ; diamond tablet rings on 
their forefingers ; with snuff-boxes, the worth of which might 
almost purchase a farm ; lace worked by the delicate fingers of 
some religious recluse of an ancestress, and taken from an altar- 
cloth; old point-lace, dark as coffee-water could make it ; with 
embroidered waistcoats, wreathed in exquisite tambour-work 
round each capricious lappet and pocket ; with cut steel but- 
tons that glistened beneath the courtly wax-lights : with these 
and fifty other small but costly characteristics that established 
the reputation of an aspirant Maccaroni. Lord Hervey was, 
in truth, an effeminate creature : too dainty to walk ; too pre- 
cious to commit his frame to horseback ; and prone to imitate 
the somewhat recluse habits which German rulers introduced 
within the court : he was disposed to candle-light pleasures and 
cockney diversions : to Marybone and the Mall, and shrinking 
from the athletic and social recreations which, like so much 
that was manly and English, were confined almost to the Eng- 
lish squire pier et simple after the Hajioverian accession ; when 
so much degeneracy for a while obscured the English character, 



All Ecccnt7^ic Race. lyy 

debased its tone, enervated its best races, vilified its literature, 
corrupted its morals, changed its costume, and degraded its 
architecture. 

Beneath the effeminacy of the Maccaroni, Lord Hervey was 
one of the few who united to intense 7^/2^/7 in every minute de- 
tail, an acute and cultivated intellect. To perfect a Maccaroni 
it was in truth advisable, if not essential, to unite some smat- 
tering of learning, a pretension to wit, to his super-dandyism ; 
to be the author of some personal squib, or the translator of 
some classic. Queen Caroline was too cultivated herself to 
suffer fools about her, and Lord Llervey was a man after her 
own taste ; as a courtier he was essentially a fine gentleman ; 
and, more than that, he could be the most delightful companion, 
the most sensible adviser, and the most winning friend in the 
court. His ill-health, which he carefully concealed, his fasti- 
diousness, his ultra-delicacy of habits, formed an agreeable con- 
trast to the coarse robustness of ' Sir Robert,' and constituted 
a relief after the society of the vulgar, strong-minded minister, 
who was born for the hustings and the House of Commons 
rather than for the courtly drawing-room. 

John Lord Hervey, long vice-chamberlain to Queen Caroline, 
was, like Sir Robert Walpole, descended from a commoner's 
family, one of those good old squires who lived, as Sir Henry 
Wotton says, * without lustre and without obscurity.' The 
Duchess of Marlborough had procured the elevation of the 
Herveys of Ickworth to the peerage. She happened to be in- 
timate with Sir Thomas Felton, the father of Mrs. Hervey* 
afterwards Lady Bristol, whose husband, at first created Lord 
Hervey, and afterwards Earl of Biistol, expressed his obliga- 
tions by retaining as his motto, when raised to the peerage, the 
words * Je n oublieray jamais,' in allusion to the service done 
him by the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. 

The Herveys had always been an eccentric race ; and the 
classification of ^ men, women, and Herveys,' by Lady Mary 
Wortlcy Montagu, was not more witty than true. 'J'here was 
in the whole race an eccentricity which bordered on tlie ridi- 
culous, but did not imply want of sense or of talent. Lidecd 
this third species, ' the Herveys,' were more gifted tlian tht 

12 



178 Carry L ord Hervey. 

generality of ^ men and women.' The father of Lord Hervey 
had been a country gentleman of good fortune, living at Ick- 
worth, near Bury in Suffolk, and representing the town in par- 
liament, as his father had before him, until raised to the peerage. 
Before that elevation he had lived on in his own county, uniting 
the character of the English squire, in that fox-hunting county, 
with that of a perfect gentleman, a scholar, and a most ad- 
mirable member of society. He was a poet, also, affecting the 
style of Cowley, who wrote an elegy upon his uncle, William 
Hervey, an elegy compared to Milton's ' Lycidas' in imagery, 
music, and tenderness of thought. The shade of Cowley, whom 
Charles II. pronounced, at his death, to be ^ the best man in 
England,' haunted this peer, the first Earl of Bristol. He as- 
pired especially to the poet's wit; and the ambition to be a wit 
flew like wildfire among his family, especially infecting his two 
sons, Carr, the elder brother of the subject of this memoir, and 
Lord Hervey. 

It would have been well could the Earl of Bristol have trans- 
mitted to his sons his other qualities. He was pious, moral, 
affectionate, sincere ; a consistent Whig of the old school, and, 
as such, disapproving of Sir Robert Walpole, of the standing 
army, the corruptions, and that doctrine of expediency so un- 
blushingly avowed by the ministers. 

Created Earl of Bristol in 17 14, the heir-apparent to his titles 
and estates was the elder brother, by a former marriage, of 
John, Lord Hervey ; the dissolute, clever, whimsical Carr, Lord 
Hervey. Pope, in one of his satirical appeals to the second 
Lord Hervey, speaks of his friendship with Carr, ' whose early 
death deprived the family' (of Hervey) 'of as much wit and 
honour as he left behind him in any part of it.' The wit was 
a family attribute, but the honour was dubious : Carr was as 
deistical as any Maccaroni of the day, and, perhaps, more dis- 
solute than most : in one respect he has left behind him a cele- 
brity which may be as questionable as his wit, or his honour ; 
he is reputed to be the father of Horace Walpole, and if we 
accept presumptive evidence of the fact, the statement is clearly 
borne out, for in his wit, his indifference to religion, to say the 
least, his satirical turn, his love of the world, and his contempt 



I 



A Fragile Boy. 179 

of all that was great and good, he strongly resembles his re- 
puted son ; whilst the levity of Lady Walpole's character, and 
Sir Robert's laxity and dissoluteness, do not furnish any reason- 
able doubt to the statement made by Lady Louisa Stuart, in the 
introduction to Lord Wharncliffe's ' Life of Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu.' Carr, Lord Hervey, died early, and his half-brother 
succeeded him in his title and expectations. 

John, Lord Hervey, was educated first at Westminster Schopl, 
under Dr. Freind, the friend of Mrs. Montagu ; thence he was 
removed to Clare Hall, Cambridge : he graduated as a noble- 
man, and became M.A. in 17 15. 

At Cambridge Lord Hervey might have acquired some manly 
prowess ; but he had a mother who was as strange as the family 
into which she had m.arried, and who was passionately devoted 
to her son : she evinced her affection by never letting him have 
a chance of being like other English boys. When his father 
was at Newmarket, Jack Hervey, as he was called, was to ride 
a race, to please his father ; but his mother could not risk her 
dear boy's safety, and the race was won by a jockey. He was 
as precious and as fragile as porcelain : the elder brother's death 
made the heir of the Herveys more valuable, more effeminate, 
and more controlled than ever by his eccentric mother. A 
court was to be his hemisphere, and to that all his views, early 
in life, tended. He went to Hanover to pay his court to George 
I. : Carr had done the same, and had come back enchanted 
with George, the heir-presumptive, who made him one of the 
lords of the bedchamber. Jack Hervey also returned full of 
enthusiasm for the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., and 
the Princess ; and that visit influenced his desthiy. 

He now proposed making the grand tour, which comprised 
Paris, Germany, and Italy. But his mother again interfered : 
she wept, she exhorted, she prevailed. Means were refused, 
and the stripling was recalled to hang about the court, or to 
loiter at Ickworth, scribbling verses, and causing his father un- 
easiness lest he should be too much of a poet, and too little of 
a public man. 

Such was his youth : disappointed by not obtaining a com- 
mission in the Guards, he led a desultory butterfly-like life ; 

12 — 2 



i8o Description of George IHs Family* 

one day at Richmond with Queen CaroHne, then Princess of 
Wales ; another, at Pope's viHa, at Twickenham ; sometimes in 
the House of Commons, in which he succeeded his elder bro- 
ther as member for Bury ; and, at the period when he has been 
described as forming one of the quart ett in Queen Caroline's 
closet at St. James's, as vice-chamberlain to his partial and royal 
patroness. 

His early marriage with Mary Lepel, the beautiful maid of 
honour to Queen Caroline, insured his felicity, though it did not 
curb his predilections for other ladies. i^ 

Henceforth Lord Hervey lived all the yesff round in what 
were then called lodgings, that is, apartments appropriated to 
the royal household, or even to others, in St. James's, or at 
Richmond, or at Windsor. In order fully to comprehend all 
the intimate relations which he had with the court, it is necessary 
to present the reader with some account of the family of George 
II. Five daughters had been the female issue of his majesty's 
marriage with Queen Caroline. Three of these princesses, the 
three elder ones, had lived, during the life of George I., at St 
James's with their grandfather ; v/ho, irritated by the differences 
between him and his son, then Prince of Wales, adopted that 
measure rather as showing his authority than from any affection 
to the young princesses. It was, in truth, difficult to say which 
of these royal ladies was the most unfortunate. 

Anne, the eldest, had shown her spirit early in life whilst re- 
siding with George I. \ she had a proud, imperious nature, and 
her temper was, it must be owned, put to a severe test. The 
only time that George I. did the English the honour of choos- 
ing one of the beauties of the nation for his mistress, was during 
the last year of his reign. The object of his choice was Anne 
Brett, the eldest daughter of the infamous Countess of Mac- 
clesfield by her second husband. The neglect of Savage, the 
poet, her son, was merely one passage in the iniquitous life of 
Lady Macclesfield. Endowed with singular taste and judg- 
ment, consulted by Colley Gibber on every new play he pro- 
duced, the mother of Savage was not only wholly destitute of 
all virtue, but of all shame. One day, looking out of the win- 
dow, she perqeived a very handsome man assaulted by some 



Anne Brett i8r 

bailiffs who were going to arrest him : she paid his debt, re- 
leased, and married him. The hero of this story was Colonel 
Brett, the father of A-nne Brett. 

The child of such a mother was not likely to be even de- 
cently-respectable ; and Anne was proud of her disgraceful pre- 
eminence and of her disgusting and royal lover. She was dark, 
and her flashing black eyes resembled those of a Spanish beauty. 
Ten years after the death of George I., she found a husband in 
Sir William Leman, of Northall, and was announced, on that 
occasion, as the half-sister of Richard Savage. 

To the sociex}^ of this woman, when at St. James's, as 
* Mistress Brett,' the three princesses were subjected: at the 
same time the Duchess of Kendal, the king's German mistress, 
occupied other lodgings at St. James's. 

Miss Brett was to be rewarded with the coronet of a coun- 
tess for her degradation, the king being absent on the occasion 
at Hanover ; elated by her expectations, she took the liberty, 
during his majesty's absence, of ordering a door to be broken 
out of her apartment into the royal garden, where the princesses 
walked. The Princess Anne, not deigning to associate with 
her, commanded that it should be forthwith closed. Miss Brett 
imperiously reversed that order. In the midst of the affair, the 
king died suddenly, and Anne Brett's reign was over, and her 
influence soon as much forgotten as if she had never existed. 
The Princess Anne was pining in the dulness of her royal home, 
when a marriage with the Prince of Orange, was proposed for 
the consideration of his parents. It was a miserable match 
as well as a miserable prospect, for the prince's revenue 
amounted to no more than ;^i 2,000 a year; and the state and 
pomp to which the Princess Royal had been accustomed could 
not be contemplated on so small a fortune. It was still worse 
in point of that poor consideration, happiness. The Prince of 
Orange was both deformed and disgusting in his person, though 
his face was sensible in expression ; and if he inspired one idea 
more strongly than another when he appeared in his uniform and 
cocked*1iat, and spoke bad French, or worse English, it was 
that of seeing before one a dressed-up baboon. 

It was a bitter cup for the princess to drink, but she drank 



1 82 The Darling of the Family, 

it : she reflected that it might be the only way of quitting a 
court where, in case of her father's death, she would be depend- 
ent on her brother Frederic, or on that weak prince's strong- 
minded wife. So she consented, and took the dwarf; and that 
consent w^as regarded by a grateful people, and by all good 
courtiers, as a sacrifice for the sake of Protestant principles,, 
the House of Orange being, par excellence, at the head of the 
orthodox dynasties in Europe. A dowry of ;^8o,ooo was 
forthwith granted by an admiring Commons — just double what 
had ever been given before. That sum was happily lying in the 
exchequer, being the purchase-money of some lands in St. 
Christopher's which had lately been sold ; and King George 
was thankful to get rid of a daughter whose haughtiness gave 
him trouble. In person, too, the princess royal was not veiy 
ornamental to the Court. She was ill-made, with a propensity 
to grow fat ; her complexion, otherwise very fine, was marked 
with the small-pox ; she had, however, a lively, clean look — one 
of her chief beauties — and a certain royalty of manner. 

The Princess Amelia died, as the world thought, single, but 
consoled herself with various love flirtations. The Duke of 
Newcastle made love to her, but her afl^ections were centred on 
the Duke of Grafton, to whom she was privately married, as is 
confidendy asserted. 

The Princess Caroline was the darling of her family. Even 
the king relied on her truth. When there was any dispute, 
he used to say, ' Send for Caroline ; she will tell us the right 
story.' 

Her fate had its clouds. Amiable, gentle, of unbounded 
charity, with strong afl'ections, which were not suffered to flow 
in a legitimate channel, she became devotedly attached to Lord 
Hervey : her heart was bound up in him ; his death drove her 
into a permanent retreat from the world. No debasing con- 
nection existed between them ; but it is misery, it is sin enough 
. to love another woman's husband — and that sin, that misery, 
was the lot of the royal and otherwise virtuous Caroline. 

The Princess Mary, another victim to conventionalities, was 
united to Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse Cassel ; a barbarian, 
irom whom she escaped, whenever she could, to come, witb a 



Evenmgs at St. James s, 183 

bleeding heart, to her English home. She was, even Horace 
Walpole allows, ' of the softest, mildest temper in the world,' 
and fondly beloved by her sister Caroline, and by the ^ Butcher 
of Culloden,' William, Duke of Cumberland. 

Louisa became Queen of Denmark in 1746, after some years' 
marriage to the Crown Prince. ' We are lucky,' Horace Walpole 
writes on that occasion, ' in the death of kings.' 

The two princesses who were still under the paternal roof 
were contrasts. Caroline was a constant invalid, gentle, sincere, 
unambitious, devoted to her mother, whose death nearly killed 
her. Amelia affected popularity, and assumed the esprit fort — 
was fond of meddling in politics, and after the death of her 
mother, joined the Bedford faction, in opposition to her father. 
But both these princesses were outwardly submissive when Lord 
Hervey became the Queen's chamberlain. 

The evenings at St. James's were spent in the same way as 
those at Kensington. 

Quadrille formed her majesty's pastime, and, whilst Lord 
Hervey played pools of cribbage with the Princess Caroline and 
the maids of honour, the Duke of Cumberland amused himself 
and the Princess Amelia at ' buffet.' On Mondays and Fridays 
there were drawing-rooms held ; and these receptions took 
place, very wisely, in the evening. 

Beneath all the show of gaiety and the freezing ceremony of 
those stately occasions, there was in that court as much misery 
as family dissensions, or, to speak accurately, family hatreds can 
engender. Endless jealousies, which seem to us as frivolous as 
they were rabid ; and contentions, of which even the origin is 
still unexplained, had long severed the queen from her eldest 
son. George 11. had always loved his mother : his affection for 
the unhappy Sophia Dorothea was one of the very few traits of 
goodness in a character utterly vulgar, sensual, and entir^Jy sel- 
fish. His son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, on the other hand, 
hated his mother. He loved neither of his parents : but the 
queen had the preeminence in his aversion. 

The king, during the year 1736, was at Hanover. His return 
was announced, but under circumstances of danger. A tre- 
mendous storm arose just as he was prepared to embark at 



1 84 Frederick, Prince of Wales, 

Helvoetsluys. All London was on the look out, weather-cocks 
were watched ; tides, winds, and moons formed the only sub- 
jects of conversation ; but no one of his majesty's subjects was 
so demonstrative as the Prince of Wales, and his cheerfulness, 
and his triumph even, on the occasion, were of course resent 
fully heard of by the queen. 

During the storm, when anxiety had almost amounted to 
fever. Lord Hervey dined with Sir Robert Walpole. Their 
conversation naturally turned on the state of affairs, prospec- 
tively. Sir Robert called the prince a ' poor, weak, irresolute, 
false, lying, contemptible wretch.' Lord Hervey did not defend 
him, but suggested that Frederick, in case of his father's death, 
.might be more influenced by the queen than he had hitherto 
been. * Zounds, my lord !' interrupted Sir Robert, ' he would 
tear the flesh oft' her bones with red-hot irons sooner ! The 
distinctions she shows to you, too, I believe, would not be for- 
gotten. Then the notion he has of his great riches, and the 
desire he has of fingering them, would make him pinch her, 
and pinch her again, in order to make her buy her ease, till she 
had not a groat left.' 

What a picture of a heartless and selfish character! The 
next day the queen sent for Lord Hervey, to ask him if he knew 
the particulars of a great dinner which the prince had given to 
the lord mayor the previous day, whilst the whole country, and 
the court in particular, was trembling for the safety of the king, 
his father. Lord Hervey told her that the prince's speech at 
the dinner was the most ingratiating piece of popularity ever 
heard ; the healths, of course, as usual. ' Hea.vens !' cried the 
queen : * popularity always makes me sick, but Fritz's popu- 
larity makes me vomit ! I hear that yesterday, on the prince's 
side of the House, they talked of the king's being cast away with 
the same sangfroid as you would talk of an overturn ; and that 
my good son strutted about as if he had been already king. 
Did you mark the airs with which he came into my drawing- 
room in the morning ? though he does not think fit to honour 
me with his presence, or ennui me with his wife's, of an even- 
ing ? I felt something here in my throat that swelled and half- 
choked me/ 



Amelia Sophia Wahnoden, 185 

Poor Queen Caroline ! with such a son, and such a husband, 
she must have been possessed of a more than usual share of 
German imperturbability to sustain her cheerfulness, writhing, as 
she often was, under the pangs of a long-concealed disorder, of 
which eventually she died. Even on the occasion of the king's 
return in time to spend his birthday in England, the queen's 
temper had been sorely tried. Nothing had ever vexed her 
more than the king's admiration for Amelia Sophia Walmoden, 
who, after the death of Caroline, was created Countess of Yar- 
mouth. Madame Walmoden had been a reigning belle among 
the ^married women at Hanover, when George II. visited that 
country in 1735. Not that her majesty's affections were wounded ; 
it was her pride that was hurt by the idea that people would 
think that this Hanoverian lady had more influence than she 
had. In other respects the king's absence was a relief: she had 
the eclat of the regency; she had the comfort of having the 
hours which 'her royal torment decreed were to be passed in 
amusing his dulness, to herself; she was free from his ' quoti- 
dian sallies of temper, which,* as Lord Hervey relates, * let it 
be charged by what hand it would, used always to discharge its 
hottest Are, on some pretence or other, upon her.' 

It is quite true that from the first dawn of his preference for 
Madame Walmoden, the king wrote circumstantial letters of 
fifty or sixty pages to the queen, informing her of every stage 
of the affair ; the queen, in reply, saying that she was only one 
woman, and an old woman, and adding, * that he might love 
mo7'e and yoimger women' In return, the king wrote, ' You 
must love the Walmoden, for she loves youf a civil insult, which 
he accompanied with so minute a description of his new favou- 
rite, that the queen, had she been a painter, might have drawn 
her portrait at a hundred miles' distance. 

The queen, subservient as she seemed, felt the humiliation. 
Such was the debased nature of George H. that he not only 
wrote letters unworthy of a man to write, and unfit for a woman 
to read, to his wife, but he desired her to show them to Sir 
Robert Walpole. He used to * tag several paragraphs,' as I.onl 
Hervey expresses it, with these words, * Montrcz ccci, d consultez 
la-dessiis de gros homme^ meaning Sir Robert. But this was 



1 86 Poor Queen Caroline! 

only a portion of the disgusting disclosures made by t?ie vulgar, 
licentious monarch to his too degraded consort. 

In the bitterness of her mortification the queen consulted 
Lord Hervey and Sir Robert as to the possibility of her losing 
her influence, should she resent the king's delay in returning. 
They agreed, that her taking the 'fiere turn' would ruin her 
with her royal consort ; Sir Robert adding, that if he had a 
mind to flatter her into her ruin, he might talk to her as if she 
were twenty-five, and try to make her imagine that she could 
bring the king back by the apprehension of losing her afl"ection. 
He said it was now too late in her life to try new methods ; she 
must persist in the soothing, coaxing, submissive arts which had 
been practised with success, and even press his majesty to bring 
this woman to England ! * He taught her,' says Lord Hervey, 
'this hard lesson till she 2£/^/.' Nevertheless, the queen ex- 
pressed her gratitude to the minister for his advice. * My 
lord,' said Walpole to Hervey, ' she laid her thanks on me so 
thick that I found I had gone too far, for I am never so much 
afraid of her rebukes as of her commendations.' 

Such was the state of afl"airs between this singular couple. 
Nevertheless, the queen, not from attachment to the king, but 
from the horror she had of her son's reigning, felt such fears of 
the prince's succeeding to the throne as she could hardly ex- 
press. He would, she was convinced, do all he could to ruin 
and injure her in case of his accession to the throne. 

The consolation of such a friend as Lord Hervey can easily 
be conceived, when he told her majesty that he had resolved, 
in case the king had been lost at sea, to have retired from her 
service, in order to prevent any jealousy or irritation that might 
arise from his supposed influence with her majesty. The queen 
stopped him short, and said, * No, my lord, I should never 
have suffered that ; you are one of the greatest pleasures of my 
life. But did I love you less than I do, or less like to have 
you about me, I should look upon the sufi"ering you to be taken 
from me as such a meanness and baseness that you should not 
have stirred an inch from me. You,' she added, ' should have 
gone with me to Somerset House ;' (which was hers in case of 
• the king's death). She then told him she should have begged 



Noctimtal Diversions of Maids of Ho7iour, 1 8/ 

Sir Robert Walpole on her knees not to have sent in his 
resignation. 

The animosity of the Prince of Wales to Lord Hervey aug- 
mented, there can be no doubt, his unnatural aversion to the 
queen, an aversion which he evinced early in life. There was 
a beautiful, giddy maid of honour, who attracted not only the 
attention of Frederick, but the rival attentions of other suitors, 
and among them, the most favoured was said to be Lord 
Hervey, notwithstanding that he had then been for some years 
the husband of one of the loveliest ornaments of the court, the 
sensible and virtuous Mary Lepel. Miss Vane became eventu- 
ally the avowed favourite of the prince, and after giving birth 
to a son, who was christened Fitz-Frederick Vane, and who 
died in 1736, his unhappy mother died a few months after- 
wards. It is melancholy to read a letter from Lady Hervey to 
Mrs. Howard, portraying the frolic and levity of this once joy- 
ous creature, among the other maids of honour \ and her stric- 
tures show at once the unrefined nature of the pranks in which 
they indulged, and her once sobriety of demeanour. 

She speaks, on one occasion, in which, however. Miss Vane 
did not share the nocturnal diversion, of some of the maids of 
honour being out in the winter all night in the gardens at Ken- 
sington — opening and rattling the windows, and trying to 
frighten people out of their wits ; and she gives Mrs. Howard a 
hint that the queen ought to be informed of the way in which 
her young attendants amused themselves. After levities such 
as these, it is not surprising to find poor Miss Vane ^vriting to 
Mrs. Howard, with complaints that she was unjustly aspersed, 
and referring to her relatives. Lady Betty Nightingale and Lady 
Hewet, in testimony of the falsehood of reports which, un- 
happily, the event verified. 

The prince, however, never forgave Lord Hervey for being 
his rival with Miss Vane, nor his mother for her favours to 
Lord Hervey. \\\ vain did the queen endeavour to reconcile 
Fritz, as she called him, to his father ; — nothing could be done 
in a case where the one was all dogged selfishness ; and where 
the other, the idol of the opposition party, as the prince had 
ever been, so lr::;h'c dc ictc as to swallow all the adulation otTcrcd 



1 88 Neighbour Georges Orange-Chest 

to him, and to believe himself a demigod. 'The queen's dread 
of a rival,' Horace Walpole remarks, Svas a feminine weakness : 
the behaviour of her eldest son was a real thorn.' Some time 
before his marriage to a princess who was supposed to augment 
his hatred of his mother, Frederick of Wales had contemplated 
an act of disobedience. Soon after his arrival in England, 
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, hearing that he was in want of 
money, had sent to offer him her granddaughter. Lady Diana 
Spencer, with a fortune of ^^ 100,000. The prince accepted 
the young lady, and a day was fixed for his marriage in the 
duchess's lodge at the Great Park, Windsor. But Sir Robert 
Walpole, getting intelligence of the plot, the nuptials were 
stopped. The duchess never forgave either Walpole or the 
roj/al family, and took an early opportunity of insulting the 
latter. When the Prince of Orange came over to marry the 
Princess Royal, a sort of boarded gallery was erected from the 
windows of the great drawing-room of the palace, and was con- 
structed so as to cross the garden to the Lutheran chapel in 
the Friary, where the duchess lived. The Prince of Orange 
being ill, went to Bath, and the marriage was delayed for some 
weeks. Meantime the widows of Marlborough House were 
darkened by the gallery. ' I wonder/ cried the old duchess, 
* v/hen my neighbour George will take away his orange-chest !* 
The structure, with its pent-house roof, really resembling an 
orange-chest. 

Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey, whose attractions, great as they 
were, proved insufficient to rivet the exclusive admiration of 
the accomplished Hervey, had become his wife in 1720, some 
time before her husband had been completely enthralled with 
the gilded prison doors of a court. She was endowed with that 
intellectual beauty calculated to attract a man of talent : she 
was highly educated, of great talent ; possessed of s avoir fair e^ 
infinite good temper, and a strict sense of duty. She also 
derived from her father, Brigadier Lepel, who was of an ancient 
family in Sark, a considerable fortune. Good and correct as 
she was, Lady Hervey viewed with a fashionable composure 
the various intimacies formed during the course of their married 
life by his lordship. ' 



Mary Lcpel, Lady Hervey. 1S9 

The fact is, that the aim of both was not so much to insure 
their domestic fehcity as to gratify their ambition. Probably 
they were disappointed in both these aims — certainly in one 
of them ; talented, indefatigable, popular, lively, and courteous, 
Lord Hervey, in the House of Commons, advocated in vain, in 
brilliant orations, the measures of Walpole. Twelve years, 
fourteen years elapsed, and he was left in the somewhat subor- 
dinate position of vice-chamberlain, in spite of that high order 
of talents which he possessed, and which would have been dis- 
played to advantage in a graver scene. The fact has been 
explained : the queen could not do without him ; she confided 
in him \ her daughter loved him ; and his influence in that 
court was too powerful for Walpole to dispense with an aid so 
valuable to his own plans. Some episodes in a life thus frit- 
tered away, until, too late, promotion came, alleviated his exis- 
tence, and gave his wife only a passing uneasiness, if even 
indeed they imparted a pang. 

One of these was his dangerous passion for Miss Vane ; 
another, his platonic attachment to Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu. 

Whilst he lived on the terms with his wife which is described 
even by the French as being a ' Mbiage de Paris ^ Lord Her- 
vey, found in another quarter the sympathies which, as a 
husband, he was too well-bred to require. It is probable that 
he always admired his wife more than any other person, for she 
had qualities that were quite congenial to the tastes of a wit 
and a beau in those times. Lady Hervey was not only singu- 
larly captivating, young, gay, and handsome ; but a complete 
model also of the polished, courteous, high-bred woman of 
fashion. Her manners are said by Lady Louisa Stuart to have 
* had a foreign tinge, which some called affected ; but they were 
gentle, easy, and altogether exquisitely pleasing.' She was in 
secret a Jacobite — and resembled in that respect most of the 
fine ladies in Great Britain. Whiggcry and Walpolism were 
vulgar : it was Jiaut ton to take offence when James H. was 
anathematized, and quite good taste to hint that some people 
wished well to the Chevalier's attempts : and this way of speak- 
ing owed its fashion probably to Frederick of Wales, whose 



I go Rivalry. 

interest In Flora Macdonald, and whose concern for the exiled 
family, were among the few amiable traits of his disposition. 
Perhaps they arose from a wish to plague his parents, rather 
than from a greatness of character foreign to this prince. 

Lady Hervey was in the bloom of youth, Lady Mary in the 
zenith of her age, when they became rivals : Lady Mary had 
once excited the jealousy of Queen Caroline when Princess of 
Wales. 

' How becomingly Lady Mary is dressed to-night,' whispered 
George II. to his wife, whom he had called up from the card- 
table to impart to her that important conviction. ' Lady Mary 
always dresses well,' was the cold and curt reply. 

Lord Hervey had been married about seven years when 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu re-appeared at the court of Queen 
Caroline, after her long residence in Turkey. Lord Herv^ey 
was thirty-three years of age ; Lady Mary was verging on forty. 
She was still a pretty woman, with a piquant, neat-featured face ; 
which does not seem to have done any justice to a mind at 
once masculine and sensitive, nor to a heart capable of benevo- 
lence — capable of strong attachments, and of bitter hatred. 

Like Lady Hervey, she lived with her husband on well-bred 
terms : there existed no quarrel between - them. ; no avowed 
ground of coldness ; it was the icy boundary of frozen feeling 
that severed them ; the sure and lasting though polite destroyer 
of all bonds, indifference. Lady Mary was full of repartee, of 
poetry, of anecdote, and w^as not averse to admiration ; but she 
was essentially a woman of common sense, of views enlarged 
by travel, and of ostensibly good principles. A woman of 
delicacy was not to be found in those days, any more than other 
productions of the nineteenth century : a telegraphic message 
would have been almost as startling to a courtly ear as the 
refusal of a fine lady to suffer a double entendre. Lady Mar}'- 
was above all scruples, and Lord Hervey, who had lived too 
long with George 11. and his queen to have the moral sense in 
her perfection, liked her all the better for her courage — ^her 
merry, indelicate jokes, and her putting things down by their 
right names, on which Lady Mary plumed herself : she was 
what they term in the north of England, ^ Emancipated.' They 



Herveys Intimacy with Lady Mary, I91 

formed an old acquaintance with a confidential, if not a tender 
friendship; and that their intimacy was unpleasant to Lady 
Hervey was proved by her refusal — ^when, after the grave had 
closed over Lord Hervey, late in life, Lady Mary ill, and broken 
down by age, returned to die in England — to resume an ac- 
quaintance which had been a painful one to her. 

Lord Hervey was a martyr to illness of an epileptic character; 
and Lady Mary gave him her sympathy. She was somewhat 
of a doctor — and being older than her friend, may have had the 
art of soothing sufferings, which were the worse because they 
were concealed. Whilst he writhed in pain, he was obliged to 
give vent to his agony by alleging that an attack of cramp bent 
him double : yet he lived by rule — a rule harder to adhere to 
than that of the most conscientious homoeopath in the present 
day. In the midst of court gaieties and the duties of office, he 
thus wrote to Dr. Cheyne : — 

... * To let you know that I continue one of your most pious 
votaries, and to tell you the method I am in. In the first place, 
I never take wine nor malt drink, nor any liquid but water and 
milk-tea ; in the next, I eat no meat but the whitest, youngest, 
and tenderest, nine times in ten nothing but chicken, and never 
more than the quantity of a small one at a meal. I seldom eat 
any supper, but if any, nothing absolutely but bread and water ; 
two days in the week I eat no flesh ; my breakfast is dry biscuit, 
not sweet, and green tea ; I have left off butter as bilious ; I 
eat no salt, nor any sauce but bread-sauce.' 

Among the most cherished relaxations of the royal house- 
hold were visits to Twickenham, whilst the court was at Rich- 
mond. The River Thames, which has borne on its waves so 
much misery in olden times — which was the highway from the 
Star-chamber to the tower — which has been belaboured in our 
days with so much weaUh, and sullied with so much impurity ; 
that river, whose current is one hour rich as the stream of a gold 
river, the next hour, foul as the pestilent churchyard, — was then, 
especially between Richmond and Tcddington, a glassy, placid 
stream, reflecting on its margin the chestnut-trees of stately 



192 Bacons Opinion of Twickejiham, 

Ham, and the reeds and wild flowers which grew undisturbed 
in the fertile meadows of Petersham. 

Lord Hervey, with the ladies of the court, Mrs. Howard as 
their chaperon, delighted in being wafted to that village, so rich 
in names which give to Twickenham undying associations with 
the departed great. Sometimes the effeminate valetudinarian, 
Hervey, was content to attend the Princess Caroline to Marble 
Hill only, a villa residence built by George II. for Mrs. Howard, 
and often referred to in the correspondence of that period. 
Sometimes the royal barge, with its rowers in scarlet jackets, 
was seen conveying the gay party ; ladies in slouched hats, 
pointed over fair brows in front, with a fold of sarsenet round 
them, terminated in a long bow and ends behind — with deep 
falling mantles over dresses never cognizant of crinoline : gen- 
tlemen, with cocked-hats, their bag-wigs and ties appearing 
behind; and beneath their puce-coloured coats, delicate silk 
tights and gossamer stockings were visible, as they trod the 
mossy lawn of the Palace Gardens at Richmond, or, followed 
by a tiny greyhound, prepared for the lazy pleasures of the 
day. 

Sometimes the visit was private ; the sickly Princess Caroline 
had a fancy to make one of the group who are bound to Pope's 
villa. Twickenham, where that great little man had, since 1 7 1 5, 
established himself, was pronounced by Lord Bacon to be the 
finest place in the world for study. * Let Twitnam Park,' he 
wrote to his steward, Thomas Bushell, 'which I sold in my 
younger days, be purchased, if possible, for a residence for 
such deserving persons to study in, (since I experimentally 
found the situation of that place much convenient for the trial 
of my philosophical conclusions) — expressed in a paper sealed, 
to the trust — ^which I myself had put in practice and settled the 
same by act of parliament, if the vicissitudes of fortune had not 
intervened and prevented me.' 

Twickenham continued, long after Bacon had penned this 
injunction, to be the retreat of the poet, the statesman, the 
scholar; the haven where the retired actress, and broken 
novelist found peace ; the abode of Henry Fielding, who lived 
in one of the back-streets ; the temporary refuge, from the world 



A Visit to Popes Villa, 193 

of London, of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the life-long 
home of Pope. 

Let us picture to ourselves a visit from the princess to Pope's 
villa : — As the barge, following the gentle bendings of the river, 
nears Twickenham, a richer green, a summer brightness, indi- 
cates it is approaching that spot of which even Bishop "VVar- 
burton says that ^ the beauty of the owner's poetic genius ap- 
peared to as much advantage in the disposition of these ro- 
mantic materials as in any of his best-contrived poems.' x^nd 
the loved toil which formed the quincunx, which perforated 
and extended the grotto until it extended across the road to a 
garden on the opposite side — the toil which showed the gentler 
parts of Pope's better nature — has been respected, and its 
effects preserved. The enamelled law^n, green as no other 
grass save that by the Thames side is green, was swept until 
late years by the light boughs of the famed willow. Every 
memorial of the bard was treasured by the gracious hands 
into which, after 1744, the classic spot fell — those of Sir William 
Stanhope. 

In the subten*anean passage this verse appears ; adulatory it 
must be confessed : — 

* The humble roof, the garden's scanty line, 
111 suit the genius of the bard divine ; 
But fancy now assumes a fairer scope, 
And Stanhope's plans unfold the soul of Pope. ' 

It should have been Stanhope's ' gold,' — a metal which was not 
so abundant, nor indeed so much wanted in Pope's time as in 
our OAvn. Let us picture to ourselves the poet as a host. 

As the barge is moored close to the low steps which lead up 
from the river to the villa, a diminutive figure, then in its prime, 
(if prime it ever had), is seen moving impatiently forward. By 
that young-old face, with its large lucid speaking eyes that light 
it up, as does a rushHght in a cavern — by that twisted figure 
with its emaciated legs — by the large, sensible mouth, the 
pointed, marked, well-defined nose — by the wig, or hair pushed 
off in masses from the broad forehead and falling behind in 
tresses — by the dress, that loose, single-breasted black coat — 
by the cambric band and plaited shirt, without a frill, but fine 



194 T^^^^ Little Nightingale, 

and white, for the poor poet has taken infinite pains that day 
in self-adornment — ^by the dehcate ruffle on that large thin hand, 
and still more by the clear, most musical voice which is heard 
welcoming his royal and noble guests, as. he stands bowing low 
to the Princess Caroline, and bending to kiss hands — by that 
voice which gained him more especially the name of the little 
nightingale — is Pope at once recognized, and Pope in the per 
fection of his days, in the very zenith of his fame. 

One would gladly have been a sprite to listen from some twig 
of that then stripling willow which the poet had planted with 
his own hand, to talk of those who chatted for a while under 
its shade, before they went in-doors to an elegant dinner at the 
usual hour of twelve. How delightful to hear, unseen, the 
repartees of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who comes down, it 
is natural to conclude, from her villa near to that of Pope. 
How fine a study might one not draw of the fine gentleman and 
the wit in Lord Hervey, as he is commanded by the gentle 
Princess Caroline to sit on her right hand ; but his heart is 
across the table, with Lady Mary ! How amusing to observe 
the dainty but not sumptuous repast contrived with Pope's ex- 
quisite taste, but regulated by his habitual economy — for his 
late father, a worthy Jacobite hatter, erst in the Strand, dis- 
dained to invest the fortune he had amassed, from the extensive 
sale of cocked-hats, in the Funds, over which an Hanoverian 
stranger ruled; but had lived on his capital of ;^2o,ooo (as 
spendthrifts do, without either moral, religious, or political 
reasons), as long as it lasted him ; yet he was no spendthrift. 
Let us look, therefore, with a liberal eye, noting, as we stand, 
how that fortune, in league with nature, who made the poet 
crooked, had maimed two of his fingers, such time as, passing 
a bridge, the poor little poet was overturned into the river, and 
he would have been drowned, had not the postilion broken the 
coach windov/ and dragged the tiny body through the aperture. 
We mark, however, that he generally contrives to hide this 
defect, as he would fain have hidden every other, from the 
lynx eyes of Lady Mary, who knows him, however, thoroughly, 
and reads every line of that poor little heart of his, enamoured 
of her as it was. 




rOPK AT HIS VILLA -DISTINOl'ISIIED VISITOUS. 



»SV».- p. 1'j4 



The Essence of Small- Talk. 195 

Then the conversation ! How gladly would we catch here 
some drops of what must have been the very essence of small- 
talk, and small-talk is the only thing fit for early dinners ! 
Our host is noted for his easy address, his engaging manners, 
his delicacy, politeness, and a certain tact he had of showing 
every guest that he was welcome in the choicest expressions 
and most elegant terms. Then Lady Mary ! how brilliant is 
her slightest turn ! how she banters Pope — ^liow she gives doithle 
entendre for double entendre to Hervey ! How sensible, yet how 
gay is all she says ; how bright, how cutting, yet how polished 
is the equivoque of the witty, high-bred Hervey ! He is happy 
that day — away from the coarse, passionate king, whom he 
hated with a hatred that burns itself out in his lordship's 
* Memoirs ;' away from the somewhat exacting and pitiable 
queen ; away from the hated Pelham, and the rival Grafton. 

And conversation never flags when all, more or less, are con- 
genial ; when all are well-informed, well-bred and resolved to 
please. Yet there is a canker in that whole assembly; that 
cnnker is a want of confidence ; no one trusts the other; Lady 
Mary's encouragement of Hervey surprises and shocks the 
Princess Caroline, who loves him secretly ; Hervey's attentions 
to the queen of letters scandalizes Pope, who soon afterwards 
makes a declaration to Lady Mary. Pope writhes under a lash 
just held over him by Lady Mary's hand. Hervey feels that 
the poet, though all suavity, is ready to demolish him at any 
moment, if he can ; and the only really happy and complacent 
person of the whole party is, perhaps. Pope's old mother, who 
sits in the room next to that occupied for dinner, industriously 
spinning. 

This happy state of things came, however, as is often the 
case, in close intimacies, to a painful conclusion. There was 
too little reality, too little earnestness of feeling, for the friend- 
ship between Pope and Lady Mary, including Lord Hervey, to 
last long. His lordship had his affectations, and his effeminate 
nicety was proverbial. One day being asked at dinner if he 
would take some beef, he is reported to have answered, ' Beef ? 
oh no ! faugh ! don't you know I never eat beef, nor horse, nor 
curry, nor any of those things ?' Poor man ! it was probably a 

13— 2 



196 Pope's Quarrel with Hervey and Lady Mary. 

pleasant way of turning off what he may have deemed an assault 
on a digestion that could hardly conquer any solid food. This, 
affectation offended Lady Mary, whose mot^ that there were 
three species, ^Men, women, and Herveys' — implies a perfect 
perception of the eccentricities even of her gifted friend, Lord 
Hervey, whose mother's friend she had been, and the object of 
whose admiration she undoubtedly was. 

Pope, who was the most irritable of men, never forgot or for- 
gave even the most trifling offence. Lady Bolingbroke truly 
said of him that he played the politician about cabbages and 
salads, and everybody agrees that he could hardly tolerate the 
-wit that was more successful than his own. It was about the 
year 1725, that he began to hate Lord Hervey with such a 
hatred as only he could feel ; it was unmitigated by a single 
touch of generosity or of compassion. Pope afterwards owned 
that his acquaintance with Lady Mary and with Hervey was 
discontinued, merely because they had too much wit for him. 
Towards the latter end of 1732, ' The Imitation of the Second 
Satire of the First Book of Horace,' appeared, and in it Pope 
attacked Lady Mary with the grossest and most indecent coup- 
let ever printed : she was called Sappho, and Hervey, Lord 
Fanny ; and all the world knew the characters at once. 

In retaliation for this satire, appeared 'Verses to the Imitator 
of Horace;' said to have been the joint production of Lord 
Hervey and Lady Mary. This was followed by a piece entitled 
^ Letter from a Nobleman at Hampton Court to a Doctor of 
Divinity.' To this composition Lord Hervey, its sole author, 
added these lines, by way, as it seems, of extenuation. 

Pope's first reply was in a prose letter, on which Dr. Johnson 
has passed a condemnation. ' It exhibits,' he says, 'nothing 
but tedious malignity.' But he was partial to the Herveys, 
Thomas and Henry Hervey, Lord Hervey's brothers, having 
been kind to him — ' If you call a dog Hervey^ he said to Bos- 
well, ' I shall love him.' 

Next came the epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, in which every in- 
firmity and peculiarity of Hervey are handed down in calm, 
cruel irony, and polished verses, to. posterity. The verses are 
almost too disgusting to be revived in an age which disclaims 



Hervey's Duel with Pulteney, ig/ 

scurrility. After the most personal rancorous invective, he thus 
writes of Lord Hervey's conversation : — 

His wit all see-saw between this and that— 
Now high, now low — now master up, now miss — 
And he himself one vile antithesis. 

♦ «fr 5t * 

Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, 

Now trips a lady, and now stmts a lord. 

Eve's tempter, thus the rabbins have expressed — 

A cherub's face — a reptile all the rest. 

Beauty that shocks you, facts that none can trust, 

Wit that can creep, and pride that bites the dust.' 

' It is impossible/ Mr. Croker thinks, ' not to admire, how- 
ever we may condemn, the art by which acknowledged wit, 
beauty, and gentle manners — the queen's favour — and even a 
valetudinary diet, are travestied into the most odious offences.' 

Pope, in two lines, pointed to the intimacy between Lady 
Mary and Lord Hervey : — 

' Once, and but once, this heedless youth was hit, 
And liked that dangerous thing, a female wit.' 

Nevertheless, he afterwards pretended that the name Sappho 
was not applied to Lady Mary, but to women in general ; and 
acted with a degree of mean prevarication which greatly added 
to the amount of his offence. 

The quarrel with Pope was not the only attack which Lord 
Hervey had to encounter. Among the most zealous of his 
foes was Pulteney, afterwards Lord Bath, the rival of Sir Robert 
Walpole, and the confederate with Bolingbroke in opposing 
that minister. The ^ Craftsman,' contained an attack on Pul- 
teney, written, with great ability, by Hervey. It provoked a 
Reply from Pulteney. In this composition he spoke of Hervey 
as ' a thing below contempt,' and ridiculed his personal appear- 
ance in the grossest terms. A duel was the result, the parties 
meeting behind Arlington House, in Piccadilly, where Mr. 
Pulteney had the satisfaction of almost running Lord Hervey 
through with his sword. Luckily the poor man slipped dowTi, 
so the blow was evaded, and the seconds interfered : Mr. Pul- 
teney then embraced Lord Hervey, and expressing his regret 
for their quarrel, declared that he would never again, either in 



198 ' The Death of Lord Hervey : A Drama! 

speech or writing, attack his lordship. Lord Hervey only 
bowed, in silence \ and thus they parted. 

The queen having observed what an alteration in the palace 
Lord Hervey's death would cause, he said he could guess how 
it would be, and he produced 'The Death of Lord Hervey; 
or, a Morning at Court ; a Drama :' the idea being taken it is 
thought, from Swift's verses on his own death, of which Hervey 
might have seen a surreptitious copy. The following scene 
will give some idea of the plot and structure of this amusing 
little piece. The part allotted to the Princess Caroline is 
in unison with the idea prevalent of her attachment to Lord 
Hervey : — 

ACT I. 

Scene : The Queens Gallery. The timet nine in the. morning. 

Enter the Queen, Princess Emily, Princess Caroline, /c?//^za^^ ^7 Lord- 
LiFFORD, aud Mrs. Purcel. 

Queen. Mon Dieu, quelle chaleur ! en verite on etouffe. Pray open a little 
those windows. 

Lord Lifford. Hasa your Majesty heara de news? 

Queen. What news, my dear Lord? 

Lord Lifford. Dat my Lord Hervey, as he was coming last night to tone^ was 
rob and murdered by highwaymen and tron in a ditch. 

Princess Caroline. Eh ! grand Dieu ! 

Queen {striking her hand upon her k?iee.'] Comment est-il vdritablement mort? 
Purcel, my angel, shall I not have a little breakfast ? 

Mrs. Purcel. What would your Majesty please to have? 

Queen. A little chocolate, my soul, if you give me leave, and a httle sour 
cream, and some fruit. [Exit Mrs. Purcel. 

Queen [to Lord Lifford.'] Eh bien ! my Lord Lifford, dites-nous un peu com- 
ment cela est arriv6. I cannot imagine what he had to do to be putting his nose 
there. Seulement pour un sot voyage avec ce petit mousse, eh bien ? 

Lord Lifford. Madame, on scait quelque chose de celui de Mon. Maran, qui 
d'abord qu'il a vu les voleurs s'est enfin venu a grand galoppe a Londres, and 
after dat a waggoner take up the body and put it in his cart. 

Queen, [to Princess Emily.] Are you not ashamed, Amalie, to laugh? 

Princess Emily. I only laughed at the cart, mamma. 

Queen. Oh ! that is a very fade plaisanterie. 

Princess Emily. But if I may say it, mamma, I am not very sorry.- 

Queen. Oh ! fie done ! Eh bien ! my Lord Lifford ! My God ! where is this 
chocolate, Purcel? 

As Mr. Croker remarks, Queen Caroline's breakfast-table^ 
and her parentheses, reminds one of the card-table conversation 
of Swift : — 

' The Dean's dead : (pray what are trumps ?) 
Then Lord have mercy on his soul ! 
(Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.) 
Six Deans, they say, must bear the pall ; 
(I wish I knew what king to call.)' 



Queen Carolines last Drawing-Room. 199 

Fragile as was Lord Hervey's constitution, it was his lot to 
witness the death-bed of the queen, for whose amusement he 
had penned the jeu d'esprit just quoted, in which there was, 
perhaps, as much truth as wit. 

The wretched Queen CaroHne had, during fourteen years, con- 
cealed from every one, except Lady Sundon, an incurable dis- 
order, that of hernia. In November (1737) she was attacked 
Avith what we should now call English cholera. Dr. Tessier, her 
house-physician, was called in, and gave her Daffey's elixir, 
which was not likely to afford any relief to the deep-seated 
cause of her sufferings. She held a drawing-room that night 
for the last time, and played at cards, even cheerfully. At 
length she whispered to Lord Hervey, ' I am not able to enter- 
tain people.' *For heaven's sake, madam,' was the reply, 'go 
to your room : would to heaven the king would leave off talk- 
ing of the Dragon of Wantley, and release you !' The Dragon 
of Wantley was a burlesque on the Italian opera, by Henry 
Carey, and was the theme of the fashionable world. 

The next day the queen was in fearful agony, very hot, and 
willing to take anything proposed. Still she did not, even to 
Lord Hervey, avow the real cause of her illness. None of the 
most learned court physicians, neither Mead nor Wilmot, were 
called in. Lord Hervey sat by the queen's bed-side, and tried to 
soothe her, whilst the Princess Caroline joined in begging him 
to give her mother something to relieve her agony. At length, 
in utter ignorance of the case, it was proposed to give her some 
snakeroot, a stimulant, and, at the same time. Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh's cordial ; so singular was it thus to find that great mind 
still influencing a court. It was that very medicine which was 
administered by Queen Anne of Denmark, however, to Prince 
Henry ; that medicine which Raleigh said, * would cure him, or 
any other, of a disease, except in case of poison.' 

However, Ranby, house-surgeon to the king, and a favourite 
of Lord Hervey's, assuring him that a cordial with this name 
or that name was mere quackery, some usquebaugh was given 
instead, but was rejected by the queen soon afterwards. At 
last Raleigh's cordial was administered, but also rejected about 
an hour afterwards. Her fever, after taking Raleigh's cordial, 



200 Her Illness and Agony, 

Avas so much increas.ed, that she was ordered instantly to be 
bled. 

Then, even, the queen never disclosed the fact that could 
alone dictate the course to be pursued. George II., with more 
feeling than judgment, slept on the outside of the queen's bed 
all that night ; so that the unhappy invalid could get no rest, 
nor change her position, not daring to irritate the king's temper. 

The next day the queen said touchingly to her gentle, affec- 
tionate daughter, herself in declining health, ^ Poor Caroline ! 
you are very ill, too : we shall soon meet again in another 
place.' 

Meantime, though the queen declared to every one that she 
was sure nothing could save her, it was resolved to hold a levee. 
The foreign ministers were to come to court, and the king, in 
the midst of his real grief, did not forget to send word to his 
pages to be sure to have his last new ruffles sewed on the shirt 
he was to put on that day ; a trifle which often, as Lord Hervey 
remarks, shows more of the real character than events of im- 
portance, from which one frequently knows no more of a per- 
son's slate of mind than one does of his natural gait from 
his dancing. 

Lady Sundon was, meantime, ill at Bath, so that the queen's 
secret rested alone in her own heart. ^ I have an ill,' she said, 
one evening, to her daughter Caroline, ' that nobody knows of.' 
Still, neither the princess nor Lord Hervey could guess at the 
full meaning of that sad assertion. 

The famous Sir Hans Sloane was then called in ; but no 
remedy except large and repeated bleedings were suggested, 
and blisters were put on her legs. There seems to have been 
no means left untried by the faculty to hasten the catastrophe — 
thus working in the dark. 

The king now sat up with her whom he had so cruelly 
wounded in every nice feeling. On being asked, by Lord 
Hervey, what was to be done in case the Prince of Wales 
should come to inquire after the queen, he answered in the 
following terms, worthy of his ancestry — worthy of himself It 
is difficult to say which was the most painful scene, that in the 
chamber where the queen lay in agony, or without, where the 



A Painfid Scene, 201 

curse of family dissensions came like a ghoul to hover near the 
bed of death, and to gloat over the royal corpse. This was the 
royal dictum : — ^ If the puppy should, in one of his impertinent 
airs of duty and affection, dare to come to St. James's, I order 
you to go to the scoundrel, and tell him I wonder at his im- 
pudence for daring to come here ; that he has my orders al- 
ready, and knows my pleasure, and bid him go about his 
business ; for his poor mother is not in a condition to see him 
act his false, whining, cringing tricks now, nor am I in a hu- 
mour to bear with his impertinence ; and bid him trouble me 
with no more messages, but get out of my house.' 

In the evening, whilst Lord Hervey sat at tea in the queen's 
outer apartment with the Duke of Cumberland, a page came to 
the duke to speak to the prince in the passage. It was to 
prefer a request to see his mother. This message was conveyed 
by Lord Hervey to the king, whose reply was uttered in the 
most vehement rage possible. ' This,' said he, ' is like one of 
his scoundrel tricks ; it is just of a piece with his kneeling down 
in the dirt before the mob to kiss her hand at the coach door 
when she came home from Hampton Court to see the Princess, 
though he had not spoken one word to her during her whole 
visit. I always hated the rascal, but now I hate him worse 
than ever. He wants to come and insult his poor dying mo- 
ther ; but she shall not see him : you have heard her, and all 
my daughters have heard her, very often this year at Hampton 
Court desire me if she should be ill, and out of her senses, that 
I would never let him come near her ; and whilst she had her 
senses she was sure she should never desire it. No, no ! he 
shall not come and act any of his silly plays here.' 

In the afternoon the queen said to the king, she wondered 
the Gri^y a nickname she gave to the prince, had not sent to 
inquire after her yet ; it would be so like one of his paroitrcs. 
' Sooner or later,' she added, * I am sure we shall be plagued 
with some message of that sort, because he will think it will have 
a good air in the world to ask to see me ; and, perhaps, hopes 
I shall be fool enough to let him come, and give him the i)lca- 
sure of seeing the last breath go out of my body, by which 



202 The Truth Discovered. 

means he would have the joy of knowing I was dead five 
minutes sooner than he could^know it in Pall Mall.' 

She afterwards declared that nothing would induce her to see 
him except the king's absolute commands. ^Therefore, if I 
grow worse/ she said, ^and should I be weak enough to talk of 
seeing him, I beg you, sir, to conclude that I doat — or rave.' 

The king, who had long since guessed at the queen's disease, 
urged her now to permit him to name it to her physicians. She 
begged him not to do so ; and for the first time, and the last, 
the unhappy woman spoke peevishly and warmly. Then Ranby^ 
the house-surgeon, who had by this time discovered the truth, 
said, 'There is no more time to be lost ; your majesty has con- 
cealed the truth too long : I beg another surgeon may be called 
in immediately.' 

The queen, who had, in her passion, started up in her bed, 
lay down again, turned her head on the other side, and, as the 
king told Lord Hervey, ' shed the only tear he ever saw her 
shed whilst she was ill.' 

At length, too late, other and more sensible means were re- 
sorted to : but the queen's strength was failing fast. It must 
have been a strange scene in that chamber of death. Much as 
the king really grieved for the queen's state, he was still suffici- 
ently collected to grieve also lest Richmond Lodge, which was 
settled on the queen, should go to the hated Griff r"" and he 
actually sent Lord Hervey to the lord chancellor to inquire 
about that point. It was decided that the queen could make a 
will, so the king informed her of his inquiries, in order to set 
her mind at ease, and to assure her it was impossible that the 
prince could in any way benefit pecuniarily from her death. The 
Princess Emily now sat up with her mother. The king went to 
bed. The Princess Caroline slept on a couch in the ante- 
chamber, and Lord Hervey lay on a mattress on the floor at 
the foot of the Princess Caroline's couch. 

On the following day (four after the first attack) mortification 
came en, and the weeping Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey 
were informed that the queen could not hold out many hours. 
Lord Hervey was ordered to withdraw. The king, the Duke 

* Prince Frederick. 



The Queens Dying Bequests, 203 

of Cumberland, and the queen's four daughters alone remained, 
the queen begging them not to leave her until she expired ; yet 
her life was prolonged many days. 

When alone with her family, she took from her finger a ^ 
ruby ring, which had been placed on it at the time of the coro- 
nation, and gave it to the king. ^ This is the last thing,' she 
said, ' I have to give you ; naked I came to you, and naked I 
go from you ; I had everything I ever possessed from you, and 
to you whatever I have I return.' She then asked for her keys, 
and gave them to the king. To the Princess Caroline she in- 
trusted the care of her younger sisters ; to the Duke of Cum- 
berland, that of keeping up the credit of the family. ' Attempt 
nothing against your brother, and endeavour to mortify him by 
showing superior merit,' she said to him. She advised the king 
to marry again ; he heard her in sobs, and with much difficulty 
got out this sentence : ^ Non. faurai des inaitresses.^ To which 
the queen made no other reply than ^ Ah^ inon Dieu ! cela 
iHempeche pas,^ ' I know,' says Lord Hervey, in his Memoirs, 
*that this episode will hardly be credited, but it is literally 
true.' 

She then fancied she could sleep. The king kissed her, 
and wept over her ; yet when she asked for her watch, which 
hung near the chimney, that she might give him the seal to take 
care of, his brutal temper broke forth. In the midst of his tears 
he called out, in a loud voice, ^ Let it alone ! vwn Dim ! the 
queen has such strange fancies ; who should meddle with your 
seal ? It is as safe there as in my pocket.' 

The queen then thought she could sleep, and, in fact, sank to 
rest. She felt refreshed on awakening and said, ' I wish it Avas 
over ; it is only a reprieve to make me suffer a little longer ; I 
cannot recover, but my nasty heart will not break yet.' She had 
an impression that she should die on a Wednesday : she had, 
she said, been born on a Wednesday, married on a Wednesday, 
crowned on a Wednesday, her first child was born on a Wed- 
nesday, and she had heard of the late king s death on a Wed- 
nesday. 

On the ensuing day she saw Sir Robert Walpolc. ' My good 
Sir Robert,' she thus addressed him, ^ you see me in a very in- 



204 Archbishop Potter is sent for. 

different situation. I have nothing to say to you but to re- 
commend the king, my children, and the kingdom to your 
care.' 

Lord Hervey, when the minister retired, asked him what he 
thought of the queen's state. 

^ My lord/ was the reply, ' she is as much dead as if she was 
in her coffin ; if ever I heard a corpse speak, it was just now 
in that room !' 

It was a sad, an awful death-bed. The Prince of Wales 
having sent to inquire after the health of his dying mother, the 
queen became uneasy lest he should hear the true state of her 
case, asking ^ if no one would send those ravens,' meaning the 
prince's attendants, out of the house. ' They were only,' she 
said, ^ watching her death, and would gladly tear her to pieces 
whilst she was alive.' Whilst thus she spoke of her son's cour- 
tiers, that son was sitting up all night in his house in Pall Mall, 
and saying, when any messenger came in from St. James's, 
^ Well, sure, we shall soon have good news, she cannot hold out 
much longer.' And the princesses were writing letters to pre- 
vent the Princess Royal from coming to England, where she 
was certain to meet with brutal unkindness from her father, who 
could not endure to be put to any expense. Orders were, in- 
deed, sent to stop her if she set out. She came, however, 
on pretence of taking the Bath waters ; but George II., furious 
at her disobedience, obliged her to go direct to and from Bath 
without stopping, and never forgave her. 

Notwithstanding her predictions, the queen survived the fatal 
Wednesday. Until this time no prelate had been called in to 
pray by her majesty, nor to administer the Holy Communion 
and as people about the court began to be scandalized by this 
omission. Sir Robert Walpole advised that the Archbishop of 
Canterbury should be sent for : his opinion was couched in the 
following terms, characteristic at once of the man, the times, 
and the court : — 

* Pray, madam,' he said to the Princess Emily, ^ let this farce 
be played ; the archbishop will act it very well. You may bid 
him be as short as you will : it will do the queen no hurt, no 
more than any good ; and it will satisfy all the wise and good 



The Duty of Reconciliation. 205 

fools, who will call us atheists if we don't pretend to be as great 
fools as they are.' 

Unhappily, Lord Hervey, who relates this anecdote, was 
himself an unbeliever ; yet the scoffing tone adopted by Sir 
Robert seems to have shocked even him. ^ 

In consequence of this advice. Archbishop Potter prayed by 
the queen morning and evening, the king always quitting the 
room when his grace entered it. Her children, however, knelt 
by her bedside. Still the whisperers who censured were unsa- 
tisfied — the concession was thrown away. Why did not the 
queen receive the communion ? Was it, as the world believed, 
either ' that she had reasoned herself into a very low and cold 
assent to Christianity ?' or ' that she was heterodox ?' or ^ that 
the archbishop refused to administer the sacrament until she 
should be reconciled to her son ?' Even Lord Hervey, who 
rarely left the antechamber, has only by his silence proved that 
she did not take the communion. That antechamber was 
crowded with persons who, as the prelate left the chamber of 
death, crowded around, eagerly asking, * Has the queen re- 
ceived ?' ^ Her majesty,' was the evasive reply, ^ is in a heavenly 
disposition :' the public were thus deceived. Among those who 
were near the queen at this solemn hour was Dr. Butler, author 
of the ' Analogy.' He had been made clerk of the closet, and 
became, after the queen's death. Bishop of Bristol. He was in 
a remote living in Durham, when the queen, remembering that 
it was long since she had heard of him, asked the Archbishop 
of York ' whether Dr. Buder was dead ?' — ^ No, madam,' re- 
plied that prelate (Dr. Blackburn), ' but he is buried ;' upon 
which she had sent for him to court. Yet he was not courageous 
enough, it seems, to speak to her of her son and of the duty of 
reconciliation ; whether she ever sent the prince any message or 
not is uncertain ; Lord Hervey is silent on that point, so that it 
is to be feared that Lord Chesterfield's line — 

' And, unforgiving-, iinforgivcn, dies !' 

had but too sure a foundation in fact ; so that Pope's sarcastic 
verses — 

' Ilang the sad verse on Carolina's urn, 
And hail her passage to the realms of rest ; 
I\\\ parts performed and all her children blest,' 



'2o6 The Death of Queen Caroline, 

may have been but too just, though cruelly bitter. The queen 
lingered till the 20th of November. During that- interval of 
agony her consort was perpetually boasting to every one of her 
virtues, her sense, her patience, hei softness, her delicacy ; and 
ending with the praise, ^ Cojnme elle soiUenoit sa dignite avec grace, 
avecpoliiesse, avec douceur P Nevertheless he scarcely ever went 
into her room. Lord Hervey states that he did, even in this 
moving situation, snub her for something or other she did or said. 
One morning, as she lay with her eyes fixed on a point in the air, 
as people sometimes do when they want to keep their thoughts 
from wandering, the king coarsely told her ^ she looked like a 
calf which had just had its throat cut.' He expected her to 
die in state. Then, with all his bursts of tenderness he always 
mingled his own praises, hinting that though she was a good 
wife he knew he had deserved a good one, and remarking, when 
he extolled her understanding, that he did not * think it the 
worse for her having kept him company so many years.' To all 
this Lord Hervey listened with, doubtless, well-concealed dis- 
gust ; for cabals were even then forming for the future influence 
that might or might not be obtained. 

The queen's life, meantime, was softly ebbing away in this 
atmosphere of selfishness, brutality, and unbelief One even- 
ing she asked Dr. Tessier impatiently how long her state might 
continue. 

^ Your Majesty,' was the reply, 'will soon be released.' 

' So much the better,' the queen calmly answered. 

At ten o'clock that night, whilst the king lay at the foot of 
her bed, on the floor, and the Princess Emily on a couch-bed 
in the room, the fearful death-rattle in the throat was heard. 
Mrs. Purcell, her chief and old attendant, gave the alarm : the 
Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey were sent for; but the 
princess was too late, her mother had expired before she arrived. 
All the dying queen said was, ' I have now got an asthma ; open 
the window :' then she added, ^F7^ayr That was her last 
word. As the Princess Emily began to read some prayers, the 
sufferer breathed her last sigh. The Princess Caroline held a 
looking-glass to her lips, and finding there was no damp on it, 
said, ' 'Tis over !' Yet she shed not one tear upon the arrival of 



I 



A Change in Herveys Life. 207 

that event, the prospect of which had cost her so many heart- 
rending sobs. 

The king kissed the hfeless face and hands of his often- 
injured wife, and then retired to his own apartment, ordering^ 
that a page should sit up with him for that and several other 
nights, for his Majesty was afraid of apparitions, and feared to 
be left alone. He caused himself, however, to be buried by 
the side of his queen, in Henry VH.'s chapel, and ordered 
that one side of his coffin and of hers should be withdrawn \ 
and in that state the two coffins were discovered not many 
years ago. 

With the death of Queen Caroline, Lord Hervey's life, as to 
court, was changed. He was afterwards made lord privy seal, 
and had consequently to enter the political world, with the dis- 
advantage of knowing that much was expected from a man of 
so high a reputation for wit and learning. He was violently 
opposed by Pelham., Duke of Newcastle, who had been adverse 
to his entering the ministry, and since, with Walpole's favour, 
it was impossible to injure him by fair means, it was resolved 
to oppose Lord Hervey by foul ones. One evening, when 
he was to speak, a party of fashionable Amazons, with two 
duchesses — her grace of Queensberry and her grace of Ancas- 
tcr — at their head, stormed the House of Lords and disturbed 
the debate with noisy laughter and sneers. Poor Lord Hervey 
was completely daunted, and spoke miserably. After Sir Ro- 
bert Walpole's fall Lord Hervey retired. The following letter 
from him to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu fully describes his 
position and circumstances : — 

' I must now,' he writes to her, ^ since you take so friendly a 
part in what concerns me, give you a short account of my natural 
and political health ; and when I say I am still alive, and still 
privy seal, it is all I can say for the pleasure of one or the 
honour of the other; for since Lord Orford's retiring, as I am 
too proud to offer my service and friendship where I am not 
sure they will be accepted of, and too inconsiderable to have 
those advances made to me (though I never forgot or failed to 
return any obligation I ever received), so I remain as illustrious 
a nothing in this office as ever filled it since it was erected. 



2o8 Lord Herveys Death, 

There is one benefit, however, I enjoy from this loss of my 
court interest, which is, that all those flies which were buzzing 
about me in the summer sunshine and full ripeness of that 
interest, have all deserted its autumnal decay, and from think- 
ing my natural death not far off, and my political demise 
already over, have all forgot the death-bed of the one and the 
cofiin of the other.' 

Again he wrote to her a characteristic letter : — 

' I have been confined these three weeks by a fever, which 
is a sort of annual tax my detestable constitution pays to our 
detestable climate at the return of every spring ; it is now much 
abated, though not quite gone off.' 

He was long a helpless invalid ; and on the 8th of August, 
1743, his short, unprofitable, brilliant, unhappy life was closed. 
He died at Ickworth, attended and deplored by his wife, who 
had ever held a secondary part in the heart of the great wit 
and beau of the court of George II. After his death his son 
George returned to Lady Mary all the letters she had written to 
his father : the packet was sealed : an assurance wa,s at the 
same time given that they had not been read. In acknowledg- 
ing this act of attention. Lady Mary wrote that she could 
almost regret that he had not glanced his eye over a corre- 
spondence which might have shown him what so young a man 
might perhaps be inclined to doubt — ^ the possibility of a long 
and steady friendship subsisting between two persons of different 
sexes without the least mixture of love.' 

Nevertheless some expressions of Lord Hervey's seem to 
have bordered on the tender style, when writing to Lady Mary 
in such terms as these. She had complained that she was too 
old to inspire a passion (a sort of challenge for a compliment), 
on which he wrote : ' I should think anybody a great fool that 
said he liked spring better than summer, merely because it is 
further from autumn, or that they loved green fruit better than 
ripe only because it was further from being rotten. I ever did^ 
and believe ever shall, like woman best — 

' "Just in the noon of life — those golden days, 
When the mind ripens ere the form decays. " ' 

Certainly this looks very unlike a pure Platonic, and it is not 



Memoirs of liis Ozvn Time, 209 

to be wondered at that Lady Hervey refused to call on Lady 
Mary, when, long after Lord Hervey's death, that faschiatnig 
woman returned to England. A wit, a courtier at the very 
fount of all politeness. Lord Hervey wanted the genuine source 
of all social qualities — Christianity. That moral refrigerator 
which checks the kindly current of neighbourly kindness, and 
which prevents all genial feeling from expanding, produced its 
usual effect — misanthropy. Lord Hervey's lines, in his ' Satire 
after the manner of Persius,' describe too well his own mental 
canker : — 

* Mankind I know, their motives and their art, 
Their vice their own, their virtue best apart, 
Till played so oft, that all the cheat can tell, 
And dangerous only when 'tis acted well.' 

Lord Hervey left in the possession of his family a manuscript 
work, consisting of memoirs of his own time, written in his 
own autograph, which was clean and legible. This work, which 
has furnished many of the anecdotes connected with his court 
life in the foregoing pages, was long guarded from the eye of 
any but the Hervey family, owing to an injunction given in his 
will by Augustus, third Earl of Bristol, Lord Hervey's son, that 
it should noj: see the light until after the death of his Majesty 
George HI. It was not therefore published until 1848, when 
they were edited by Mr. Croker. They are referred to both by 
Horace Walpole, who had heard of them, if he had not seen 
them, and by Lord Hailes, as affording the most intimate por- 
traiture of a court that has ever been presented to the English 
people. Such a delineation as Lord Hervey has left ought to 
cause a sentiment of thankfulness in every British heart for not 
being exposed to such influences, to such examples as he gives, 
in the present day, when goodness, affection, purity, benevo- 
lence, are the household deities of the court of our beloved, 
inestimable Queen Victoria. 



14 



PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, 
FOURTH EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 

The King of Table Wits. — Early Years. — Hervey's Description of his Person. — 
Rtsdutions and Pursuits. — Study of Oratory.— The Duties of an Am- 
bassador. — King George II. 's Opinion of his Chroniclers. — Life in the 
Country. — Melusina, Countess of Walsingham. — George II. and his 
Father's Will. — Dissolving Views. — Madame du Bouchet. — The Broad- 
Bottomed Administration. — Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland in Time of Peril. — 
Reformation of the Calendar. — Chesterfield House. — Exclusiveness. — Re- 
commending 'Johnson's Dictionary.' — 'Old Samuel,' to Chesterfield. — 
Defensive Pride. — ^The Glass of Fashion. — Lord Scarborough's Friendship 
for Chesterfield. — ^The Death of Chesterfield's Son. — His Interest in his 
Grandsons. — * I must go and Rehearse my Funeral.' — Chesterfield's Will. — 
What is a Friend? — Les Manieres Nobles. — Letters to his Son. 




HE subject of this memoir may be thought by some 
rather the modeller of wits than the original of that 
class ; the great critic and judge of manners rather 
than the delight of the dinner-table : but we are told to the 
contrary by one who loved him not. Lord Hervey says of 
Lord Chesterfield that he was ' allowed by everybody to have 
more conversable entertaining table-wit than any man of his 
time : his propensity to ridicule, in which he indulged himself 
with infinite humour and no distinction ; and his inexhaustible 
spirits, and no discretion ; rdade him sought and feared — ^liked 
and not loved — by most of his acquaintance.' 

This formidable personage was born in London on the 2nd 
day of September, 1694. It was remarkable that the father of 
a man so vivacious, should have been of a morose temper ; all 
the wit and spirit of intrigue displayed by him remind us of the 
frail Lady Chesterfield, in the time of Charles 11.'^ — that lady 
who was looked on as a martyr because her husband was 

* The Countess of Chesterfield here alluded to was the second wife of Philip, 
second Earl of Chesterfield. Philip Dormer, fourth Earl, was grandson of the 
second Earl, by his third wife. 



The King of Table Wiis — Early Years. 211 

jealous of her: ^a prodigy/ says De Grammont, ^in the city of 
London/ where indulgent critics endeavoured to excuse his 
lordship on account of his bad education, and mothers vowed 
that none of their sons should ever set foot in Italy, lest they 
should ' bring back with them that infamous custom of layihg 
restraint on their wives.' 

Even Horace Walpole cites Chesterfield as the ^ witty earl :' 
apropos to an anecdote which he relates of an Italian lady, who 
said that she was only four-and- twenty ; ^ I suppose/ said Lord 
Chesterfield, ^ she means four-and-twenty stone/ 

By his father the future wit, historian, and orator was utterly 
neglected ; but his grandmother, the Marchioness of Halifax, 
supplied to him the place of both parents, his mother — her 
daughter. Lady Elizabeth Saville — having died in his childhood. 
At the age of eighteen, Chesterfield, then Lord Stanhope, was 
entered at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. It was one of the features 
of his character to fall at once into the tone of the society into 
which he happened to be thrown. One can hardly imagine his 
being * an absolute pedant,' but such was, actually, his own 
account of himself : — ^ When I talked my best, I quoted Horace; 
when I aimed at being facetious, I quoted Martial ; and when 
I had a mind to be a fine gentleman, I talked Ovid. I was 
convinced that none but the ancients had common sense; that 
the classics contained everything that was either necessary, 
useful, or ornamental to men ; and I was not even without 
thoughts of wearing the toga virilis of the Romans, instead of 
the vulgar and illiberal dress of the moderns.' 

Thus, again, when in Paris, he caught the manners, as he 
had acquired the language, of the Parisians. * I shall not give 
you my opinion of the French, because I am very often taken 
for one of them, and several have paid me the highest compli- 
ment they think it in their power to bestow — which is, " Sir, 
you are just like ourselves." I shall only tell you that I am 
insolent ; I talk a great deal ; I am very loud and peremptor)^ ; 
I sing and dance as I walk along ; and, above all, I spend an 
immense sum in hair-powder, feathers, and white gloves.' 

Although he entered Parliament before he had attained the 
legal age, and was expected to make a great figure in that 

14—2 



» 212 • Hervey's Description of his Person, 

assembly, Lord Chesterfield preferred the reputation of a wit 
and a beau to any other distinction. ' Call it vanity, if you 
will,' he wrote in after-life to his son, ^ and possibly it was so ; 
but my great object was to make every man and every woman- 
love me. I often succeeded : but why ? by taking great pains.' 

According to Lord Hervey's account he often even sacrificed 
his interest to his vanity. The description given of Lord 
Chesterfield by one as bitter as himself implies, indeed, that great 
pains were requisite to counterbalance the defects of nature. 
Wilkes, one of the ugliest men of his time, used to say, that 
with an hour's start he would carry off tlie affections of any 
woman from the handsomest man breathing. Lord Chcjter- 
field, according to Lord Hervey, required to be still longer in 
advance of a rival. 

* With a person,' Hervey writes, ^as disagreeable, as it was 
possible for a human figure to be without being deformed, he 
affected following many women of the first beauty and the most 
in fashion. He was very short, disproportioned, thick and 
clumsily made; had a broad, rough-featured, ugly face, with 
black teeth, and a head big enough for a Polyphemus. One 
Ben Ashurst, who said a few good things, though admired for 
many, told Lord Chesterfield once, that he was like a stunted 
giant — which was a humorous idea and really apposite.' 

Notwithstanding that Chesterfield, when young, injured both 
soul and body by pleasure and dissipation, he always found 
time for serious study : when he could not have it otherwise, he 
took it out of his sleep. How late soever he went to bed, he 
resolved always to rise early ; and this resolution he adhered 
to so faithfully, that at the age of fifty-eight he could declare 
that for more than forty years he had never been in bed at nine 
o'clock in the morning, but had generally been up before eight. 
He had the good sense, in this respect, not to exaggerate even 
this homely virtue. He did not rise with the dawn, as many early 
risers pride themselves in doing, putting all the engagements of 
ordinary life out of their usual beat, just as if the clocks had 
been set two hours forward. The man in ordinary society, who 
rises at four in this country, and goes to bed at nine, is a social 
and family nuisance. 



Resolutions and Pttrsicits — Stitdy of Oratory, 213 

Strong good sense characterized Chesterfield's early pursuits. 
Desultory reading he abhorred. He looked on it as one of the 
resources of age, but as injurious to the young in the extreme. 
* Throw away/ thus he writes to his son, * none of your tijaie 
upon those trivial, futile books, published by idle necessitous 
authors for the amusement of idle and ignorant readers.' 

Even in those days such books ' swarm and buzz about one :' 
'flap them away,' says Chesterfield, * they have no sting.' The 
earl directed the whole force of his mind to oratory, and be- 
came the finest speaker of his time. Writing to Sir Horace 
Mann, about the Hanoverian debate (in 1743, Dec. 15), 
Walpole praising the speeches of Lords Halifax and Sandwich, 
adds, 'I was there, and heard Lord Chesterfield make tlie 
finest oration I have ever heard there.' This from a man who 
had listened to Pulteney, to Chatham, to Cateret, was a singu- 
larly valuable tribute. 

Whilst a student at Cambridge, Chesterfield was forming an 
acquaintance with the Hon. George Berkeley, the youngest 
son of the second Earl of Berkeley, and remarkable rather as 
being the second husband of Lady Suffolk, the favourite of 
George II., than from any merits or demerits of his own. 

This early intimacy probably brought Lord Chesterfield into 
the close friendship which afterwards subsisted between him and 
Lady Suftolk, to whom many of his letters are addressed. 

His first public capacity was a diplomatic appointment : he 
afterwards attained to the rank of an ambassador, whose duty 
it is, according to a witticism of Sir Henry Wotton's ' to lie 
abroad for the good of his country ;' and no man was in this 
respect more competent to fulfil these requirements than Ches- 
terfield. Hating both wine and tobacco, he had smoked and 
drunk at Cambridge^ ' to be in the fashion ;' he gamed at the 
Hague, on the same principle ; and, unhappily, gaming became 
a- habit and a passion. Yet never did he indulge it when 'act- 
ing, afterwards, in a ministerial capacity. Neither when Lord- 
Lieutenant of Ireland, or as Under-secretary of State, did he 
allow a gaming-table in his house. On the very night that he 
resigned office he went to IVhile's. 



214 King George II! s Opinion of his Chroniclers. 

The Hague was then a charming residence : among others 
who, from poUtical motives, were Hving there, were John Duke 
of Marlborough and Queen Sarah, both of whom paid Ches- 
terfield marked attention. Naturally industrious, with a ready 
insight into character — a perfect master in that art which bids 
us keep one's thoughts close, and our countenances open, 
Chesterfield was admirably fitted for diplomacy. A master of 
modern languages and of history, he soon began to like busi- 
ness. When in England, he had been accused of having ^a 
need of a certain proportion of talk in a day :' ^ that,' he wrote 
to Lady Suffolk, ' is now changed into a need of such a pro- 
portion of writing in a day.' 

In 1728 he was promoted : being sent as ambassador to the 
Hague, where he was popular, and where he believed his stay 
would be beneficial both to soul and body, there being ^ fewer 
temptations, and fewer opportunities to sin,' as he wrote to Lady 
Sufiblk, * than in England.' Here his days passed, he asserted, 
in doing the king's business, very ill — and his own still worse : — 
sitting down daily to dinner with fourteen or fifteen people ; 
whilst at five the pleasures of the evening began with a lounge 
on the Voorhoot, a public walk planted by Charles V. : — then, 
either a very bad French play, or a ^ rep7^ise quadrille^ with 
three ladies, the youngest of them fifty, and the chance of 
losing, perhaps, three florins (besides one's time) — lasted till 
ten o'clock; at which time ^His Excellency'- went home, ^re- 
flecting with satisfaction on the innocent amusements of a well- 
spent day, that left nothing behind them,' and retired to bed at 
eleven, ' with the testimony of a good conscience.' 

All, however, of Chesterfield's time was not passed in this 
serene dissipation. He began to compose ' The History of the 
Reign of George IL' at this period. About only half a dozen 
characters were written. The intention was not confined to 
Chesterfield : Carteret and Bolingbroke entertained a similar 
design, which was completed by neither. When the subject 
was broached before George IL, he thus expressed himself; 
and his remarks are the more amusing as they were addressed 
to Lord Hervey, who was, at that very moment, making his 



I 



Life in the Country, 215 

notes for that bitter chronicle of his majesty's reign, which has 
been ushered into the world by the late AVilson Croker — * They 
will all three/ said King George II., * have about as much 
truth in them as the Milk et U71C Nuits. Not but I shall like 
to read Bolingbroke's, who of all those rascals and knaves that 
have been lying against me these ten years has certainly the 
best parts, and the most knowledge. He is a scoundrel, but 
he is a scoundrel of a higher class than Chesterfield. Chester- 
field is a little, tea-table scoundrel, that tells little womanish 
lies to make quarrels in families : and tries to make women 
lose their reputations, and make their husbands beat them, 
without any object but to give himself airs ; as if anybody 
could believe a woman could like a dwarf baboon.' 

Lord Herv^ey gave the preference to Bolingbroke ; stating as 
his reason, that ' though Lord Bolingbroke had no idea of wit, 
his satire was keener than any one's. Lord Chesterfield, on the 
other hand, would have a great deal of wit in them ; but, in 
every page you see he intended to be witty : every paragraph 
would be an epigram. Polish, he declared, would be his bane ;' 
and Lord Hervey was perfectly right. 

In 1732 Lord Chesterfield was obliged to retire from his 
embassy on the plea of ill-health, but probably, from some po- 
litical cause. He was in the opposition against Sir Robert Wal- 
pole in the Excise Bill ; and felt the displeasure of that all- 
powerful minister by being dismissed from his office of High 
Steward. 

Being badly received at court he now lived in the country ; 
sometimes at Buxton, where his father drank the waters, where 
he had his recreations, when not persecuted by two young 
brothers, Sir William Stanhope and John Stanhope, one of 
whom performed 'tolerably ill upon a broken hautboy, and the 
other something worse upon a cracked flute.' There he won 
three half-crowns from the curate of the place, and a shilling 
from * Gaffer P^oxeley' at a cock-match. Sometimes he sought 
relaxation in Scarborough, where fashionable beaux ' danced 
with the pretty ladies all night,' and hundreds of Yorkshire 
country bumpkins * played the inferior parts ; and, as it were, 
only tumble, whilst the others dance upon the high ropes of 



2i6 Melusina, Coimtess of Walsingham. 

gallantry.' Scarborough was full of Jacobites : the popular 
feeling was then all rife against Sir Robert Walpole's excise 
scheme. Lord Chesterfield thus wittily satirized that famous 
measure : — 

* The people of this town are, at present, in great consterna- 
' tion upon a report they have heard from London, which, if 
true, they think will ruin them. They are informed, that con- 
sidering the vast consumption of these waters, there is a design 
laid of excising ih^x^ next session; and, moreover, that as bath- 
ing in the sea is become the general practice of both sexes, 
and as the kings of England have always been allowed to be 
masters of the seas, every person so bathing shall be gauged, 
and pay so much per foot square, as their cubical bulk amounts 
to.' 

In 1733, Lord Chesterfield married Melusina, the supposed 
niece, but, in fact, the daughter of the Duchess of Kendal, the 
mistress of George I. This lady was presumed to be a great 
heiress, from the dominion which her mother had over the 
king. Melusina had been created (for life) Baron.ess of Aid- 
borough, county Suffolk, and Countess of Walsingham, county 
Norfolk, nine years previous to her marriage. 

Her father being George I., as Horace Walpole terms him, 
* rather a good sort of man than a shining king,' and her mo- 
ther ' being no genius,' there was probably no great attraction 
about Lady Walsingham, except her expected dowry. 

During her girlhood Melusina resided in the apartments at 
St. James's — opening into the garden ; and here Horace Wal- 
pole describes his seeing George I., in the rooms appropriated 
to the Duchess of Kendal, next to those of Melusina Schu- 
lemberg, or, as she was then called, the Countess of Walsing- 
ham. The Duchess of Kendal was then very ' lean and ill- 
favoured.' * Just before her,' says Horace, ' stood a tall, elderly 
man, rather pale, of an aspect rather good-natured than august : 
in a dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff- 
coloured cloth, with stockings of the same colour, and a blue 
riband over all. That was George I.' 

The Duchess of Kendal had been maid of honour to the 
Electress Sophia, the mother of George I. and the daughter of 



George II, and Ids Father s Will, 217 

ElizalDCtli of Bohemia. The duchess was always frightful ; so 
much so that one night the electress, who had acquired a little 
English, said to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Lady Suftblk, — glanc- 
ing at Mademoiselle Schulemberg — ' Look at that m(M'kin, and 
think of her being my son's passion !* 

Tlic duchess, however, like all the Hanoverians, knew how 
to profit by royal preference. She took bribes : — she had a 
sctdement of ;;!^3,ooo a year. But her daughter -was eventu- 
ally disappointed of the expected bequest from her father, the 
king.''' 

In the apartments at St. James's Lord Chesterfield for some 
time lived, when he was not engaged in office abroad ; and 
there he dissipated large sums in play. It was here, too, that 
Queen Caroline, the wife of George II., detected the intimacy 
that existed between Chesterfield and Lady Suffolk. There 
was an obscure window in Queen Caroline's apartments, which 
looked into a dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at 
night. One Twelfth Night Lord Chesterfield, having won a 
large sum at cards, deposited it with Lady Suftblk, thinking it 
not safe to carry it home at night. He was watched, and his 
intimacy with the mistress of George II. thereupon inferred. 
Thenceforth he could obtain no court influence ; and, in des- 
peration, he went into the opposition. 

On the death of George I., a singular scene, with which 
Lord Chesterfield's interests were connected, occurred in the 
Privy Council. Dr. Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, produced 
the king's will, and delivered it to his successor, expecting that 
it would be opened and read in the council ; what was his con- 
sternation, when his Majesty, without saying a word, put it into 
his pocket, and stalked out of the room with real German im- 
perturbability ! Neither the astounded prelate nor the subser- 
vient council ventured to utter a word. The will was never 
more heard of : and rumour declared that it was burnt. The 



* In the 'Annual Register,' for 1774, p. 20, it is stated that as George I. had 
le't LaJy Walsin^ii iin a le:jacy wli.cii h.s siuj^ssor did not tliiuk proper to dc- 
hver, tlivj Earl ot Chesterfield was determliud to recover it by a suit in Chancery, 
hid not his Ma'esty, on qiiostionnv; tiie Lord Chancellor on thj subject, and 
b^inor answered that he could ^ivc no opinion extrajudic.ally, thou^ljt proper to 
fulfil the bequest. 



2i8 Dissolvinz Views. 



'e> 



contents, of course, never transpired ; and the legacy of 
;^4o,ooo, said to have been left to the Duchess of Kendal, 
was never more spoken of, until Lord Chesterfield, in 1733, 
married the Countess of Walsingham. In 1743, it is said, he 
claimed the legacy — in right of his wife — the Duchess of 
Kendal being then dead: and was ^ quieted' with ;^2 0,000, 
and got, as Horace Walpole observes, nothing from the duchess 
— ^ except his wife/ 

The only excuse that was urged to extenuate this act on the 
part of George II., was that his royal father had burned two 
wills which had been made in his favour. These were sup- 
posed to be the wills of the Duke and Duchess of Zell and of 
the Electress Sophia. There was not even common honesty in 
the house of Hanover at that period. 

Disappointed in his wife's fortune, Lord Chesterfield seems 
to have cared very little for the disappointed heiress. Their 
union was childless. His opinion of marriage appears very 
much to have coincided with that of the world of malcontents 
who rush, in the present day, to the court of Judge Cresswell, 
with ' dissolving views.' On one occasion he writes thus : * I 
have at last done the best office that can be done to most mar- 
ried people ; that is, I have fixed the separation between my 
brother and his wife, and the definitive treaty of peace will be 
proclaimed in about a fortnight.' 

Horace Walpole related the following anecdote of Sir Wil- 
liam Stanhope (Chesterfield's brother) and his lady, whom he 
calls ' a fond couple.' After their return from Paris, when they 
arrived at Lord Chesterfield's house at Blackheath, Sir William, 
who had, like his brother, a cutting, polite wit, that was pro- 
bably expressed with the ^ allowed simper ' of Lord Chesterfield, 
got out of the chaise and said, with a low bow, * Madame, I 
hope I shall never see your face again.' She replied, ' Sir, I 
will take care that you never shall ;' and so they parted. 

There was little probability of Lord Chesterfield's participat- 
ing in domestic felicity, when neither his heart nor his fancy 
were engaged in the union which he had formed. The lady to 
whom he was really attached, and by whom he had a son, re- 
sided in the Netherlands : she passed by the name of Madame 



Madame du Bouchet. 219 

du Bouchet, and survived both Lord Chesterfield and her son. 
A permanent provision was made for her, and a sum of five 
hundred pounds bequeathed to her, with these words : ^ as a 
small reparation for the injury I did her.' ^ Certainly,' adds 
Lord Mahon, in his Memoir of his illustrious ancestor, ' a small 
one.' 

For some time Lord Chesterfield remained in England, and 
his letters are dated from Bath, from Tonbridge, from Black- 
heath. He had, in 1726, been elevated to the House of Lords 
upon the death of his father. In that assembly his great elo- 
quence is thus well described by his biographer : — '^ 

* Lord Chesterfield's eloquence, the fruit of much study, was 
less characterized by force and compass than by elegance and 
perspicuity, and especially by good taste and urbanity, and a 
vein of delicate irony which, while it sometimes inflicted severe 
strokes, never passed the limits of decency and propriety. It 
was that of a man who, in the union of wit and good sense 
with politeness, had not a competitor. These qualities were ma- 
tured by the advantage which he assiduously sought and obtained, 
of a familiar acquaintance with almost all the eminent wits and 
writers of his time, many of whom had been the ornaments of 
a preceding age of literature, while others were destined to be- 
come those of a later period.' 

The accession of George II., to whose court Lord Chester- 
field had been attached for many years, brought him no poli- 
tical preferment. The court had, however, its attractions even 
for one wb^ owed his polish to the belles of Paris, and who 
was almost always, in taste and manners, more foreign than 
English. Henrietta, Lady Pomfret, the daughter and heiress 
of John, Lord Jeffreys, the son of Judge Jeffreys, was at that 
time the leader of fashion. 

Six daughters, one of them, Lady Sophia, surpassingly lovely 
recalled the perfections of that ancestress, Arabella Fermor 
whose charms Pope has so exquisitely touched in the ' Rape of 
the Lock.' Lady Sophia became eventually the wife of Lord 
Carteret, the minister, whose talents and the charms of whose 

* Ix)rd Mahon, now Earl of Stanhope, if not the most eloquent, one of the 
most honest historians of our time. 



1220 The Broad-Bottomed A dministration. 

eloquence constituted him a sort of rival to Chesterfield. With 
all his abilities, Lord Chesterfield may be said to have failed 
both as a courtier and as a political character, as far as perma- 
nent influence in any ministry was concerned, until in 1744, 
when what was called the ^ Broad-bottomed administration' was 
formed, when he was admitted into the cabinet. In the follow- 
ing year, however, he went, for the last time, to Holland, as 
ambassador, and succeeded beyond the expectations of his 
party in the purposes of his embassy. He took leave of the 
States-General just before the battle of Fontenoy, and hastened 
to Ireland, where he had been nominated Lord-Lieutenant pre- 
vious to his journey to Holland. He remained in that country 
only a year ; but long enough to prove how liberal were his 
views — how kindly the dispositions of his heart. 

Only a few years before Lord Chesterfield's arrival in Dublin, 
the Duke of Shrewsbury had given as a reason for accepting 
the vice-regency of that country, (of which King James I. had 
said, there was 'more ado' than with any of his dominions,) 
^ that it was a place where a man had business enough to keep 
him from falling asleep, and not enough to keep hini awake.' 

Chesterfield, however, was not of that opinion. He did more 
in one year than the duke would have accomplished in five. 
He began by instituting a principle of impartial justice. For- 
merly, Protestants had alone been employed as * managers ;' 
the Lieutenant was to see with Protestant eyes, to hear with 
Protestant ears. 

' I have determined to proscribe no set of persons whatever,' 
says Chesterfield, *■ and determined to be governed by none. 
Had the Papists made any attempt to put themselves above the 
law, I should have taken good care to have quelled them again. 
It was said my lenity to the Papists had wrought no alteration 
either in their religious or their political sentiments. I did not 
expect that it would : but surely that was no reason for cruelty 
towards them.' 

Often by a timely jest Chesterfield conveyed a hint, or even 
•shrouded a reproof. One of the ultra-zealous informed him 
that his coachman was a Papist, and went every Sunday to 



Lord-L ieufenant of Ireland in Time of Peril. 221 

mass. ' Does he indeed ? I will take care he never drives me 
there,' was Chesterfield's cool reply. 

It was at this critical period, when the Hanoverian dynasty 
was shaken almost to its downfall by the insurrection in Scot- 
land of 1745, that Ireland was imperilled: ^With a^weak or 
wavering, or a fierce and headlong Lord-Lieutenant — Avith a 
Grafton or a Strafford,' remarks Lord Mahon, Hhere would 
soon have been a simultaneous rising in the Emerald Isle.' 
But Chesterfield's energy, his lenity, his wise and just adminis- 
tration saved the Irish from being excited into rebellion by the 
emissaries of Charles Edward, or slaughtered, when conquered, 
by the * Butcher,' and his tiger-like dragoons. When all was 
over, and that sad page of history in which the deaths of sa 
many faithful adherents of the exiled family are recorded, had 
been held up to the gaze of bleeding Caledonia, Chesterfield 
recommended mild measures, and advised the establishment of 
schools in the Highlands ; but the age was too narrow-minded 
to adopt his views. In January, 1748, Chesterfield retired from 
public life. * Could I do any good,' he wrote to a friend, ' I 
would sacrifice some more quiet to it ; but convinced as I am 
that I can do none, I will indulge my ease, and preserve my 
character. I have gone through pleasures while my constitution 
and my spirits would allow me. Business succeeded them ; 
and I have now gone through every part of it without liking it 
at all the better for being acquainted with it. Like many other 
things, it is most admired by those who know it least. ... I 
have been behind the scenes both of pleasure and business ; I 
have seen all the coarse pulleys and dirty ropes which exhibit 
and move all the gaudy machines ; and I have seen and smelt 
the tallow candles which illuminate the whole decoration, to the 
astonishment and admiration of the ignorant multitude. . . . 
My liorse, my books, and my friends will divide my time pretty 
equally.* 

ric still interested himself in what was useful; and carried a 
Bill in the House of Lords for the Reformation of the Calendar, 
in 1 75 1. It seems a small matter for so great a mind as his to 
accomplish, but it was an achievement of infinite difficulty, 
^lany statesmen had shrunk from the undertaking ; and even 



222 Reformation of the Calendar, 

Chesterfield found it essential to prepare the public, by writing 
in some periodical papers on the subject. Nevertheless the 
vulgar outcry was vehement : ' Give us back the eleven days we 
have been robbed off cried the mob at a general election. 
When Bradley was dying, the common people ascribed his suf- 
ferings to a judgment for the part he had taken in that ^ impious 
transaction,' the alteration of the calendar. But they were not 
less homes in their notions than the Duke of Newcastle, then 
prime minister. Upon Lord Chesterfield giving him notice of 
his Bill, that bustling premier, who had been in a hurry for forty 
years, who never 'walked but always ran,' greatly alarmed, 
begged Chesterfield not to stir matters that had been long quiet; 
adding, that he did not like ' new-fangled things.' He was, as 
we have seen, overruled, and henceforth the New Style was 
adopted ; and no special calamity has fallen on the nation, as 
was expected, in consequence. Nevertheless, after Chesterfield 
had made his speech in the House of Lords, and when every 
one had complimented him on the clearness of his explana- 
tion — ' God knows,' he wrote to his son, ' I had not even at- 
tempted to explain the Bill to them; I might as soon have 
talked Celtic or Sclavonic to them as astronomy. They would 
have understood it full as well.' So much for the 'Lords' in 
those days ! 

After his furore for politics had subsided, Chesterfield re- 
turned to his ancient passion for play. We must linger a little 
over the still brilliant period of his middle life, whilst his hear- 
ing was spared; whilst his wit remained, and the charming 
manners on which he had formed a science, continued ; and 
before we see him in the mournful decline of a life wholly given 
to the world. 

He had now established himself in Chesterfield House. 
Hitherto his progenitors had been satisfied with Bloomsbury 
Square, in which the Lord Chesterfield mentioned by De Gram- 
mont resided ; but the accomplished Chesterfield chose a site 
near Audley Street, which had been built on what was called 
Mr. Audley's land, lying between Great Brook Field and the 
' Shoulder of Mutton Field.' And near this locality with the 
elegant name, Chesterfield chose his spot, for which he had to 



Chesterfield House, 22^ 

wrangle and fight with the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, 
who asked an exorbitant sum for the ground. Isaac Ware, the 
editor of ' Palladio/ was the architect to whom the erection of 
this handsome residence was intrusted. Happily it is still un- 
touched by any rejiovating hand. Chesterfield's favourite apart- 
ments, looking on the most spacious private garden in London, 
are just as they were in his time; one especially, which he 
termed the * finest room in London/ was furnished and deco- 
rated by him. * The walls,' says a writer in the ' Quart^erly 
Review,' ^ are covered half way up with rich and classical stores 
of literature ; above the cases are in close series the portraits 
of eminent authors, French and English, with most of whom 
he had conversed ; over these, and immediately under the 
massive cornice, extend all round in foot-long capitals the 
Horatian lines : — 

* Nunc . vetemm . libris . Nunc . somno . et . inertibus . Horis. 
Lucen . solicter . jucunda . oblivia . vitea. 

' On the mantel-pieces and cabinets stand busts of old orators, 
interspersed with voluptuous vases and bronzes, antique or 
Italian, and airy statuettes in marble or alabaster of nude or 
semi-nude opera nymphs.' 

What Chesterfield called the ^cannonical pillars' of the house 
were columns brought from Cannons, near Edgeware, the seat 
of the Duke of Chandos. The antechamber of Chesterfield 
House has been erroneously stated as the room in which John- 
son waited the great lord's pleasure. That state of endurance 
was probably passed by ^ Old Samuel' in Bloomsbury. 

In this stately abode — one of the few, the very few, that 
seem to hold noblesse apart in our levelling metropolis — Ches- 
terfield held his assemblies of all that London, or indeed Eng- 
land, Paris, the Hague, or Vienna, could furnish of what was 
polite and charming. Those were days when the stream of 
society did not, as now, flow freely, mingling with the grace of 
aristocracy tlic acquirements of hard-working professors ; there 
was then a strong line of demarcation ; it had not been broken 
down in the same way as now, wlien people of rank and wealth 
live in rows, instead of inhabiting hotels set apart. Paris has 



224 Exclusivencss. 

sustained a similar revolution, since her gardens were built over, 
and their green shades, delicious, in the centre of that hot city,, 
are seen no more. In the very Faubourg St. Germain, the grand 
old hotels are rapidly disappearing, and with them something of 
the exclusivencss of the higher orders. Lord Chesterfield, how- 
ever, triumphantly pointing to the fruits of his taste and distribu- 
tion of his wealth, witnessed, in his library at Chesterfield House, 
the events which time produced. He heard of the death of 
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and of her bequest to him 
of Iwenty thousand pounds, and her best and largest brilliant 
diamond ring, ' out of the great regard she had for his merit, 
and the infinite obligations she had received from him.' He 
witnessed the change of society and of politics which occurred 
when George II. expired, and the Earl of Bute, calling himself 
a descendant of the house of Stuart, *and humble enougli to 
be proud of it,' having quitted the isle of Bute, which Lord 
Chesterfield calls ^ but a little south of Nova Zembla,' took 
possession, not only of the affections, but even of the senses 
of the young king, George III., who, assisted by the widowed 
Princess of Wales (supposed to be attached to Lord Bute), was 
^ lugged out of the seraglio,' and ^ placed upon the throne.' 

Chesterfield lived to have the honour of having the plan of 
* Johnson's Dictionary ' inscribed to him, and the dishonour of 
neglecting the great author. Johnson, indeed, denied the truth 
of the story which gained general belief, in which it was asserted 
that he had taken a disgust at being kept waiting in the earl's 
antechamber, the reason being assigned that his lordship * had 
company with him ;' when at last the door opened, and forth 
came Colley Gibber. Then Johnson — so report said — indignant,, 
not only for having been kept waiting but also for zvhom, went 
away, it was affirmed, in disgust ; but this was solemnly denied 
by the doctor, who assured Boswell that his wrath proceeded 
from continual neglect on the part of Chesterfield. 

Whilst the Dictionary was in progress, Chesterfield seemed 
to forget the existence of him, whom, together with the other 
literary men, he affected to patronize. 

He once sent him ten pounds, after which he forgot John- 
son's address, and said 'the great author had changed his 



* Old Sanijicr to Chesterfield, 22$ 

lodgings.' People who really wish to benefit others can always 
discover where they lodge. The days of patronage were then 
expiring, but they had not quite ceased, and a dedication was 
always to be in some way paid for. _^ 

When the publication of the Dictionary drew near, Lord 
Chesterfield flattered himself that, in spite of all his neglect, the 
great compliment of having so vast an undertaking dedicated 
to him would still be paid, and wrote some papers in the 
'World,' recommending the work, more especially referring to 
the ' plan,' and terming Johnson the * dictator,' in respect to 
language : ' I will not only obey him,' he said, *as my dictator, 
like an old Roman, but like a modern Roman, will implicidy 
believe in him as my pope.' 

Johnson, however, was not to be propitiated by those 
* honeyed words.' He wrote a letter couched in what he 
called * civil terms,' to Chesterfield, from which we extract the 
following passages : 

'When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your 
lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the 
enchantment of your address ; and could not forbear to wish 
that I might boast myself vainqiieur die vaiiiqiiciLi'- de la tei^re — 
that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world con- 
tending ; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that 
neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. 
When I had once addressed your lordship in pubHck, I had 
exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly 
scholar can possess. I had done all that I could ; and no man 
is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so litde. 

* Seven years, my lord, have now past, since I waited in your 
outward room, or was repulsed from your door, during which 
time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of 
which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to 
the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one 
word of encouragement, or one smile of favour : such treatment 
I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. . . . Is 
not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man 
who is struggHng for life in the water, and, when he has reached 
ground, encumbers him wiili hcli) ? The notice which you 



226 Defensive Pride. 

have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had 
been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and 
cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary and cannot impart it ; till I 
am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical 
asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been 
received, or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me 
as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to 

do for myself 

The conduct of Johnson, on this occasion, was approved by 
most manly minds, except that of his publisher, Mr. Robert 
Dodsley ; Dr. Adams, a friend of Dodsley, said he was sorry 
that Johnson had written that celebrated letter (a very 
model of polite contempt). Dodsley said he was sorry too, for 
he had a property in the Dictionary, to which his lordship's 
patronage might be useful. He then said that Lord Chester- 
field had shown him the letter. ' I should have thought,' said 
Adams, 'that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed it.' 
' PoohV cried Dodsley, ' do you think a letter from Johnson 
could hurt Lord Chesterfield ? not at all, sir. It lay on his table, 
where any one might see it. He read it to me ; said, " this man 
has great powers," pointed out the severest passages, and said, 
" how well they were expressed." ' The art of dissimulation, in 
which Chesterfield was perfect, imposed on Mr. Dodsley. 

Dr. Adams expostulated with the doctor, and said Lord 
Chesterfield declared he would part with the best servant he 
had, if he had known that he had turned away a man who was 
'always welcome.' Then Adams insisted on Lord Chesterfield's 
affability, and easiness of access to hterary men. But the sturdy 
Johnson replied, ' Sir, that is not Lord Chesterfield ; he is 
the proudest man existing.' 'I think,' Adams rejomed, 'I 
know one that is prouder ; you, by your own account, are the 
prouder of the two.' ' But mine,' Johnson answered, with one 
of his happy turns, ' was defensive pride.' ' This man,' he after- 
wards said, referring to Chesterfield, ' I thought had been a lord 
among wits, but I find he is only a wit among lords.' 

In revenge, Chesterfield in his Letters depicted Johnson, it 
is said, in the character of the 'respectable Hottentot.' Amongst 
other things, he observed of the Hottentot, ' he throws his meat 



II 




r>n. JOHNSON at lotid chesterfield's. 



See p. 226 



The Glass of Fashion. 22/ 

anywhere but down his throat' This being remarked to John- 
son, who was by no means pleased at being immortalized as the 
Hottentot — ' Sir/ he answered, ' Lord Chesterfield never saw 
me eat in his life.' ^ 

Such are the leading points of this famous and lasting con- 
troversy. It is amusing to know that Lord Chesterfield was 
not always precise as to directions to his letters. He once 
directed to Lord Pembroke, who was always swimming ' To the 
Earl of Pembroke, in the Thames, over against Whitehall. 
This, as Horace Walpole remarks, was sure of finding him 
within a certain fathom.' 

Lord Chesterfield was now admitted to be the very * glass of 
fashion,' though age, and, according to Lord Hervey, a hideous 
person, impeded his being the ' mould of form.' ' I don't know 
why,' writes Horace Walpole, in the dog-days, from Strawberry 
Hill, ^ but people are always more anxious about their hay than 
their corn, or twenty other things that cost them more : I sup- 
pose my Lord Chesterfield, or some such dictator, made it 
fashionable to care about one's hay. Nobody betrays solicitude 
about getting in his rents.' * The prince of wits,' as the same 
authority calls him — * his entrance into the world was announced 
by his bon-mots, and his closing lips dropped repartees that 
sparkled with his juvenile fire.' 

No one, it was generally allowed, had such a force of table- 
wit as Lord Chesterfield ; but while the ' Graces ' were ever his 
theme, he indulged himself without distinction or consideration 
in numerous sallies. He was, therefore, at once sought and 
feared ; liked but not loved ; neither sex nor relationship, nor 
rank, nor friendship, nor obligation, nor profession, could shield 
his victim from what Lord Plervey calls, * those pointed, glitter- 
ing weapons, that seemed to shine only to a stander-by, but cut 
deep into those they touched.' 

He cherished ' a voracious appetite for abuse ;' fell upon 
every one that came in his way, and thus treated each one of 
his companions at the expense of the other. To him Hervey, 
who had probably often smarted, applied the lines of Boileau — 

' Mais c'est iin petit fou qui sc croit tout pemiis, 
Et qui pour un bon mot va ix.*rdrc viiiL^t aniis.' 

15—2 



228 Lord Scarborouglis Friendship for Chesteifeld. 

Horace Walpole (a more lenient judge of Chesterfield's merits) 
observes that ' Chesterfield took no less pains to be the phoenix 
of fine gentlemen, than Tully did to qualify himself as an 
orator. Both succeeded : Tully immortalized his name ; Ches- 
terfield's reign lasted a little longer than that of a fashionable 
beauty.' It was, perhaps, because, as Dr. Johnson said, all Lord 
Chesterfield's witty sayings were puns, that even his brilliant 
w^it failed to please, although it amused, and surprised its 
hearers. 

Notwithstanding the contemptuous description of Lord Ches- 
terfield's personal appearance by Lord Hervey, his portraits re- 
present a handsome, though hard countenance, well-marked 
features, and his figure and air appear to have been elegant. 
With his commanding talents, his wonderful brilliancy and 
fluency of conversation, he would perhaps sometimes have been 
even tedious, had it r.ot been for his invariable cheerfulness. 
He was always, as Lord Hervey says, ' present' in his company. 
Amongst the few friends who really loved this thorough man of 
the world, was Lord Scarborough, yet no two characters were 
more opposite. Lord Scarborough had judgment, without wit : 
Chesterfield wit, and no judgment ; Lord Scarborough had 
honesty and principle ; Lord Chesterfield had neither. Every- 
body liked the one, but did not care for his company. Every 
one disliked the other, but wished for his company. The fact 
was, Scarborough was ^splendid and absent' Chesterfield 
' cheerful and present :' wit, grace, attention to what is passing, 
the surface, as it were, of a highly-cultured mind, produced a 
fascination with which all the honour and respectability in the 
Court of George 11. could not compete. 

In the earlier part of Chesterfield's career. Pope, Bolingbroke, 
Hervey, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and, in fact, all that 
could add to the pleasures of the then early dinner-table, illu- 
mined Chesterfield House by their wit and gaiety. Yet in the 
midst of this exciting life. Lord Chesterfield found time to de- 
vote to the improvement of his natural son, Philip Stanhope, a 
great portion of his leisure. His celebrated Letters to that son ' 
did not, however, appear during the earl's life ; nor were they 



The Death of Chesterfield's Son, 22g 

in any way the source of his popularity as a wit, which was due 
to his merits in that Hne alone. 

The youth to whom these letters, so useful and yet so ob- 
jectionable, were addressed, was intended for a diplomatist. 
He was the very reverse of his father : learned, sensible, and 
dry ; but utterly wanting in the graces, and devoid of eloquence. 
As an orator, therefore, he failed ; as a man of society, he must 
also have failed ; and his death, in 1768, some years before that 
of his father, left that father desolate, and disappointed. Philip 
Stanhope had attained the rank of envoy to Dresden, where he 
expired. 

During the five years in which Chesterfield dragged out a 
mournful life after this event, he made the painful discovery that 
his son had married without confiding that step to the father to 
whom he owed so much. This must have been almost as trying 
as the awkward, ungraceful deportment of him whom he 
mourned. The world now left Chesterfield ere he had left the 
world. He and his contemporary Lord Tyrawley were now old 
and infirm. ' The fact is,' Chesterfield wittily said, * Tyrawley 
and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to 
have it known.' 

' The Bath,' he wrote to his friend Dayrolles, ^ did me more 
good than I thought anything could do me ; but all that good 
does not amount to what builders call half-repairs, and only 
keeps up the shattered fabric a little longer than it would 
have stood without them ; but take my word for it, it will stand 
but a very little while longer. I am now in my grand climac- 
teric, and shall not complete it. Fontenelle's last words at a 
hundred and three were, /e soiiffre d'etre : deaf and infirm as I 
am, I can with truth say the same thing at sixty-tliree. In my 
mind it is only the strength of our passions, and the weakness 
of our reason, that makes us so fond of life ; but when the 
former subside and give way to the latter, we grow weary of 
being, and willing to withdraw. I do not recommend this train 
of serious reflections to you, nor ought you to adopt them. 
. . . You have children to educate and provide" for, you have 
all your senses, and can enjoy all the comforts both of domestic 
and social life. I am in every sense isole, and have wound up 



230 His Interest in his Grandsons. 

all my bottoms ; I may now walk off quietly, without missing 
nor being missed.* 

The kindness of his nature, corrupted as it was by a life 
wholly worldly, and but little illumined in its course by reli- 
gion, shone now in his care of his two grandsons, the offspring 
of his lost son, and of their mother, Eugenia Stanhope. To 
her he thus wrote : — 

^ The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, I was so 
taken up in playing with the boys, that I forgot their more im- 
portant affairs. How soon would you have them placed at 
school ? When I know your pleasure as to that, I will send to 
Monsieur Perny, to prepare everything for their reception. In 
the mean time, I beg that you will equip them thoroughly with 
clothes, linen, &c., all good, but plain ; and give me the amount, 
which I will pay ; for I do not intend, from this time forwards, 
the two boys should cost you one shilling.' 

He lived, latterly, much at Blackheath, in the house which, 
being built on Crown land, has finally become the Ranger's 
lodge ; but which still sometimes goes by the name of Chester- 
field House. Here he spent large sums, especially on pictures, 
and cultivated Cantelupe melons ; and here, as he grew older, 
and became permanently afflicted with deafiiess, his chief com- 
panion was a useful friend, Solomon Dayrolles — one of those 
indebted hangers-on whom it was an almost invariable custom 
to find, at that period, in great houses — and perhaps too fre- 
quently in our own day. 

Dayrolles, who was employed in the embassy under Lord 
Sandwich at the Hague, had always, to borrow Horace Wal- 
pole's ill-natured expression, ' been a led-captain to the Dukes 
of Richmond and Grafton, used to be sent to auctions for them, 
and to walk in the parks with their daughters, and once went 
dry-nurse in Holland with them. He has belonged, too, a good 
deal to my Lord Chesterfield, to whom I believe he owes this 
new honour, " that of being minister at the Hague," as he had 
before made him black-rod in Ireland, and gave the ingenious 
reason that he had a black face.' But the great * dictator' in the 
empire of politeness was now in a slow but sure decline. Not 
long before his death he was visited by Monsieur Suard, a 



' / must go and Rehearse my FicneraV 231 

French gentleman, who was anxious to see ' rho7?tme le plus 
aij7iable^ le plus poll et le plus spirituel des trois royaumesj but 
who found him fearfully altered ; morose from his deafness, yet 
still anxious to please. ' It is very sad,' he said, with-^is usual 
politeness, ' to be deaf, when one would so much enjoy listening. 
I am not,' he added, ' so philosophic as my friend the President 
de Montesquieu, who says, " I know how to be blind, but I do 
not yet know how to be deaf." ' * We shortened our visit,' says 
M. Suard, * lest we should fatigue the earl.' * I do not detain 
you,' said Chesterfield, ^ for I must go and rehearse my funeral.' 
It was thus that he styled his daily drive through the streets of 
London. 

Lord Chesterfield's wonderful memory continued till his latest 
hour. As he lay, gasping in the last agonies of extreme de- 
bility, his friend, Mr. Dayrolles, called in to see him half an 
hour before he expired. The politeness which had become part 
of his very nature did not desert the dying earl. He managed 
to say, in a low voice, to his valet, ' Give Dayrolles a chair.' 
This little trait greatly struck the famous Dr. Warren, who was 
at the bedside of this brilliant and wonderful man. He died on 
the 24th of March, 1773, in the 79th year of his age. 

The preamble to a codicil (Feb. 11, 1773) contains the fol- 
lowing striking sentences, written when the intellect was 
impressed with the solemnity of that solemn change which 
comes alike to the unreflecting and to the heart stricken, holy 
believer : — 

' I most humbly recommend my soul to the extensive mercy of that Eternal, 
Supreme, Intelligent Being who gave it me ; most earnestly at the same time 
deprecating his justice. Satiated with the pompous follies of this life, of which 
I have had an uncommon share, I would have no posthumous ones displayed 
at my funeral, and therefore desire to be buried in the next burying-place to 
the place where I shall die, and limit the whole expense of my funeral to ;^ioo.' 

His body was interred, according to his wish, in the vault 
of the chapel in South Audley Street, but it was afterwards 
removed to the family burial-place in Shelford Church, Not- 
tinghamshire. 

In his will he left legacies to his servants.* * I consider 
them,' he said, * as unfortunate friends ; my equals by nature, 

• Two years' wages were left to the senants. 



232 Oiesterfield's Will. 

and my inferiors only in the difference of our fortunes/ There 
was something lofty in the mind that prompted that sentence. 

His estates reverted to a distant kinsman, descended from 
a younger son of the first earl ; and it is remarkable, on look- 
ing through the Peerage of Great Britain, to perceive how often 
this has been the case in a race remarkable for the absence of 
virtue. Interested marriages, vicious habits, perhaps account 
for the fact \ but retributive justice, though it be presumptuous 
to trace its course, is everywhere. 

He had so great a horror in his last days of gambling, that 
in bequeathing his possessions to his heir, as he expected, and 
godson, Philip Stanhope, he inserts this clause : — 

' In case my said godson, Philip Stanhope, shall at any time hereinafter keep, 
or be concerned in keeping of, any race-horses, or pack of hounds, or reside one 
night at Newmarket, that infamous seminary of iniquity and ill-manners, during 
the course of the races there ; or shall resort to the said races ; or shall lose, in 
any one day, at any game or bet whatsoever, the sum of ;f 500, . then, in any the 
cases aforesaid, it is my express will that he, my said godson, shall forfeit and 
pay, out of my estate, the sum of ;^S,ooo to and for the use of the Dean and 
Chapter of Westminster.' 

When we say that Lord Chesterfield was a man who had no 
friend^ we sum up his character in those few words. Just after 
his death a small but distinguished party of men dined to- 
gether at Topham Beauclerk's. There was Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds ; Sir William Jones, the orientaHst ; Bennet Langton ; 
Steevens ; Boswell ; Johnson. The conversation turned on 
Garrick, who, Johnson said, had friends, but no friend. Then 
Boswell asked, * what is a friend ?' ' One who comforts and 
supports you, while others do not.' ^ Friendship, you know, sir, 
is the cordial drop to make the nauseous draught of life go 
down.' Then one of the company mentioned Lord Chester- 
field as one who had no friend ; and Boswell said : ' Garrick 
was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf, Lord Chesterfield 
was tinsel' And, for once, Johnson did not contradict him. 
But not so do we judge Lord Chesterfield. He was a man who 
acted on false principles through life ; and those principles gra- 
dually undermined everything that was noble and generous in 
character; just as those deep under-ground currents, noiseless 
in their course, work through fine-grained rock, and produce a 
chasm. Everything with Chesterfield was self: for self, and 



Lcs Maiiicrcs Nobles, 233 

self alone, were agreeable qualities to be assumed ; for self, was 
the country to be served, because that country protects and 
serves us : for self, were friends to be sought and cherished, as 
useful auxiliaries, or pleasant accessories : in the very core of 
the cankered heart, that advocated this corrupting doctrine of 
expediency, lay unbelief; that womi which never died in the 
hearts of so many illustrious men of that period — the refriger- 
ator of the feelings. 

One only gentle and genuine sentiment possessed Lord Ches- 
terfield, and that was his love for his son. Yet in this affection 
the worldly man might be seen in mournful colours. He did 
not seek to render his son good ; his sole desire was to see him 
successful : every lesson that he taught him, in those matchless 
Letters which have carried down Chesterfield's fame to us when 
his other productions have virtually expired, exposes a code of 
dissimulation which Philip Stanhope, in his marriage, turned 
upon the father to whom he owed so much care and advance- 
ment. These Letters are, in fact, a complete exposition of Lord 
Chesterfield's character and views of life. No other man could 
have written them ; no other man have conceived the notion 
of existence being one great effort to deceive, as well as to 
excel, and of society forming one gigantic lie. It is true they 
were addressed to one who was to enter the maze of a diplo- 
matic career, and must be taken, on that account, with some 
reservation. 

They have justly been condemned on the score of immo- 
rality ; but we must remember that the age in which they were 
written was one of lax notions, especially among men of rank, 
who regarded all women accessible, either from indiscretion or 
inferiority of rank, as fair game, and acted accordingly. But 
whilst we agree with one of Johnson's bitterest sentences as to 
the immorality of Chesterfield's letters, we disagree with his 
styling his code of manners the manners of a dancing-master. 
Chesterfield was in himself a perfect instance of what he calls 
/'T nmnicres iwblcs ; and this even Johnson allowed. 

'Talking of Chesterfield,' Johnson said, * his manner was 
exquisitely elegant, and he had more knowledge than I ex- 
pected.' Bosvvcll : * Did you find, sir, his conversation to be of 



234 Letters to his Son. 

2l superior sort ?* — Johnson : * Sir, in the conversation which I 
had with him, I had the best right to superiority, for it was 
upon philology and literature.' 

It was well remarked how extraordinary a thing it was that a 
man who loved his son so entirely should do all he could to 
make him a rascal. And Foote even contemplated bringing 
on the stage a father who had thus tutored his son ; and in- 
tended to show the son an honest man in everything else, but 
practising his father's maxims upon him, and cheating him. 

^ It should be so contrived,' Johnson remarked, referring to 
Foote's plan, ' that the father should be the only sufferer by the 
son's villany, and thus there would be poetical justice.' * Take 
out the immorality,' he added, on another occasion, ^ and the 
book (Chesterfield's Letters to his Son) should be put into the 
hands of every young gentleman.' 

We are incHned to differ, and to confess to a moral taint 
throughout the whole of the Letters ; and even had the immo- 
rality been expunged, the false motives, the deep, invariable 
advocacy of principles of expediency, would have poisoned 
what otherwise might be of effectual benefit to the minor 
virtues of polite society. 




y 



THE ABBE SCARRON. 



An Eastern Allegory. — ^Who comes Here ? — A Mad Freak and its Consequences. 
— Making an Ahh6 of him. — The May-Fair of Paris. — Scarron's Lament to 
PelHsson. — The Office of the Queen's Patient. — ' Give me a Simple Bene- 
fice.' — Scarron's Description of Himself. — Improvidence and Servility. — 
The Society at Scarron's. — The Witty Conversation. — Francoise D'Aubig- 
n^'s D6but. — The Sad Story of La Belle Indienne. — Matrimonial Consider- 
ations. — ' Scarron's Wife will hve for ever.' — Petits Soupers. — Scarron's last 
Moments. — A Lesson for Gay and Grave. 




j]HERE IS an Indian or Chinese legend, I forget which, 
from which Mrs. Shelley may have taken her hideous 
idea of Frankenstein. We are told in this allegory 
that, after fashioning some thousands of men after the most ap- 
proved model, endowing them with all that is noble, generous, 
admirable, and loveable in man or woman, the eastern Prome- 
theus grew weary in his work, stretched his hand for the beer- 
can, and draining it too deeply, lapsed presently into a state 
of what Germans call * other-man-ness.' — There is a simpler 
Anglo-Saxon term for this condition, but I spare you. The 
eastern Prometheus went on seriously with his work, and still 
produced the same perfect models, faultless alike in brain and 
leg. But when it came to the delicate finish, when the last 
touches were to be made, his hand shook a little, and the more 
delicate members went awry. It was thus that instead of the 
power of seeing every colour properly, one man came out with 
a pair of optics which turned everything to green, and this ver- 
dancy probably transmitted itself to the intelligence. Another, 
to continue the allegory, whose tympanum had slipped a little 
under the unsteady fingers of the man-maker, heard everything 
in a wrong sense, and his life was miserable, because, if you 
sang his praises, he believed you were ridiculing him, and if 



236 Alt Eastern Allegoiy, 

you heaped abuse upon him, he thought you were telling lies 
of him. 

But a§ Prometheus Orientalis grew more jovial, it seems to 
have come into his head to make mistakes on purpose. ' I'll 
have a friend to laugh with/ quoth he ; and when warned by 
an attendant Yaksha, or demon, that men who laughed one 
hour often wept the next, he swore a lusty oath, struck his 
thumb heavily on a certain bump in the skull he was complet- 
ing, and holding up his little doll, cried, ^Here is one who 
will laugh at everything !' 

I must now add what the legend neglects to tell. The 
model laugher succeeded well enough in his own reign, but he 
could not beget a large family. The laughers who never weep, 
the real clowns of life, who do not, when the curtain drops, 
retire, after an infinitesimal allowance of ' cordial,' to a half- 
starved, complaining family, with brats that cling round his 
parti-coloured stockings, and cry to him — not for jokes — but 
for bread, these laughers, I say, are few and far between. You 
should, therefore, be doubly grateful to me for introducing to 
you now one of the most famous of them ; one who with all 
right and title to be lugubrious, was the merriest man of his 
age. 

On Shrove Tuesday, in the year 1638, the good city of Mans 
was in a state of great excitement : , the carnival was at its 
height, and everybody had gone mad for one day before turn- 
ing pious for the long, dull forty days of Lent. The market- 
place was filled with maskers in quaint costumes, each wilder 
and more extravagant than the last. Here were magicians with 
high peaked hats covered with cabalistic signs, here Eastern 
sultans of the medieval model, with very fierce looks and very 
large scimitars : here Amadis de Gaul with a wagging plume a 
yard high, here Pantagruel, here harlequins, here Huguenots 
ten times more lugubrious than the despised sectaries they 
mocked, here Caesar and Pompey in trunk hose and Roman 
helmets, and a mass of other notabilities who were great fa- 
vourites in that day, appeared. 

But who comes here ? What is the meaning of these roars of 
laughter that greet the last mask who runs into the market- 



Who Comes Here? 237 

place ? Why do all the women and children hurry together, 
calling up one another, and shouting with delight ? What is 
this thing ? Is it some new species of bird, thus coveried with 
feathers and down ? In a few minutes the little figure is sur- 
rounded by a crowd of boys and women, who begin to pluck 
him of his borrowed plumes, while he chatters to them like a 
magpie, whistles like a song-bird, croaks like a raven, or in his 
natural character showers a mass of funny nonsense on them, 
till their laughter makes their sides ache. The little wretch is 
literally covered with small feathers from head to foot, and even 
his face is not to be recognized. The women pluck him be- 
hind and before ; he dances round and tries to evade their 
fingers. This is impossible ; he breaks away, runs down the 
market pursued by a shouting crowd, is again surrounded, and 
again subjected to a plucking process. The bird must be 
stripped ; he must be discovered. Little by little his back is 
bared, and little by little is seen a black jerkin, black stock- 
ings, and, wonder uj)on wonder ! the bands of a canon. 
Now they have cleared his face of its plumage, and a cry of 
disgust and shame hails the disclosure. Yes, this curious 
masker is no other than a reverend abbe, a young canon of the 
cathedral of Mans ! ' This is too much — it is scandalous — it 
is disgraceful. The church must be respected, the sacred order 
must not descend to such frivolities.' The people, lately laugh- 
ing, are now furious at the shameless abbe and not his liveliest 
wit can save him ; they threaten and cry shame on him, and in 
terror of his life, he beats his way through the crowd, and takes 
to his heels. The mob follows, hooting and savage. The little 
man is nimble ; those well-shaped legs — qui out si bic/i dansc — 
stand him in good stead. Down the streets, and out of the 
the town go hare and hounds. The pursuers gain on him — a 
bridge, a stream filled with tall reeds, and delightfully miry, are 
all the hope of refuge he sees before him. He leaps gallantly 
from the bridge in among the oziers, and has the joy of listen- 
ing to the disappointed curses of the mob, when reaching the 
stream, their quarry is nowhere to be seen. The reeds conceal 
lum, and there he lingers till nightfiill, when he can issue from 
his lurking-place, and escape from the town. 



238 A Mad Freak and its Consequences. 

Such was the mad freak which deprived the Abbe Scarron 
of the use of his limbs for life. His health was already ruined 
when he indulged this caprice ; the damp of the river brought 
on a violent attack, which closed with palsy, and the gay young 
abbe had to pay dearly for the pleasure of astonishing the 
citizens of Mans. The disguise was easily accounted for — he 
had smeared himself with honey, ripped open a feather-bed, 
and rolled himself in it. 

This little incident gives a good idea of what Scarron was in 
his younger days — ^ready at any time for any wild caprice. 

Paul Scarron was the son of a Conseiller du Parlement of 
good family, resident in Paris. He was born in 16 10, and his 
early days would have been wretched enough, if his elastic 
spirits had allowed him to give way to misery. His father was 
a good-natured, weak-minded man, who on the death of his 
first wife married a second, who, as one hen will peck at 
another's chicks, would not, as a step-mother, leave the little 
Paul in peace. She was continually putting her own children 
forward, and ill-treating the late * anointed ' son. The father 
gave in too readily, and young Paul was glad enough to be set 
free from his unhappy home. There may be some excuse in this 
for the licentious living to which he now gave himself up. He 
was heir to a decent fortune, and of course thought himself 
justified in spending it before-hand. Then, in spite of his 
quaint little figure, he had something attractive about him, for 
his merry face was good-looking, if not positively handsome. 
If we add to this, spirits as buoyant as an Irishman's — a mind 
that not only saw the ridiculous wherever it existed, but could 
turn the most solemn and awful themes to laughter, a vast deal 
of good-nature, and not a little assurance — we can understand 
that the young Scarron was a favourite with both men and 
women, and among the reckless pleasure-seekers of the day 
soon became one of the wildest. In short, he was a fast young 
Parisian, with as little care for morality or religion as any youth 
who saunters on the Boulevards of the French capital to this day. 

But his stepmother was not content with getting rid of young 
Paul, but had her eye also on his fortune, and therefore easily 
persuaded her husband that the service of the church was pre- 



Makmg an A bbe of Hhn . 239 

cisely the career for which the young reprobate was fitted. 
There was an uncle who was Bishop of Grenoble, and a canonry 
could easily be got for him. The fast youth was compelled to give 
in to this arrangement, but declined to take full orders ; so that 
while drawing the revenue of his stall, he had notlaitig to do 
with the duties of his calling. Then, too, it was rather a 
fashionable thing to be an abbe, especially a gay one. The 
position placed you on a level with people of all ranks. Half 
the court was composed of love-making ecclesiastics, and the 
souta7ie was a kind of diploma for wit and wickedness. Viewed 
in this light, the church was as jovial a profession as. the army, and 
the young Scarron went to the full extent of the letter allowed 
to the black gown. It was only such stupid superstitious louts 
as those of Mans, who did not know anything of the ways of 
Paris life, who could object to such little freaks as he loved to 
indulge in. 

The merry little abbe was soon the delight of the Marais. 
This distinct and antiquated quarter of Paris was then the May- 
fair of that capital. Here lived in ease, and contempt of the 
bourgeoisie, the great, the gay, the courtier, and the wit. Here 
Marion de Lorme received old Cardinals and young abbes ; 
here were the salons of Madame de Martel, of the Comtesse de 
la Suze, who changed her creed in order to avoid seeing her 
husband in this world or the next, and the famous — or infamous 
— Ninon de I'Enclos ; and at these houses young Scarron met 
the courtly Saint-Evremond, the witty Sarrazin, and the learned 
but arrogant Voiture. Here he read his skits and parodies, 
here travestied Virgil, made epigrams on Richelieu, and poured 
out his indelicate but always laughable witticisms. But his 
indulgences were not confined to intrigues ; he also drank deep, 
and there was not a pleasure within his reach which he ever 
thought of denying himself He laughed at religion, thought 
morality a nuisance, and resolved to be merry at all costs. 

The little account was brouglU in at last. At the age of five- 
and-twenty his constitution was broken up. Gout and rheuma- 
tism assailed him alternately or in leash. He began to feel the 
annoyance of the constraint they occasioned ; he regretted 
tliose legs which had figured so well in a ronde or a minuet, 



240 The May-Fah' of Paris, 

and those hands which had played the lute to dames more fair 
than modest; and to add to this, the pain he suffered was nor 
slight. He sought relief in gay society, and was cheerful in 
spite of his sufferings. At length came the Shrove Tuesday 
and the feathers ; and the consequences were terrible. He was 
soon a prey to doctors, whom he beheved in no more than in 
the church of which he was so great a light. His legs were no 
longer his own, so he was obliged to borrow those of a chair. 
He was soon tucked down into a species of dumb-waiter on 
castors, in which he could be rolled about in a party. In front 
of this chair was fastened a desk, on which he wrote ; for too 
wise to be overcome by his agony, he drove it away by cultivating 
his imagination, and in this way some of the most fantastic pro- 
ductions in French literature were composed by this quaint 
little abbe. 

Nor was sickness his only trial now. Old Scarron was a 
citizen, and had, what was then criminal, sundry ideas of the 
liberty of the nation. He saw with disgust the tyranny of 
Richelieu, and joined a party in the Parliament to oppose the 
cardinal's measures. He even had the courage to speak openly 
against one of the court edicts ; and the pitiless cardinal, who 
never overlooked any offence, banished him to Touraine, and 
naturally extended his animosity to the conseiller's son. This 
happened at a moment at which the cripple believed himself to 
be on the road to favour. He had already won that of Madame 
de Haudefort, on whom Louis XIII. had set his affections, and 
this lady had promised to present him to Anne of Austria. The 
father's honest boldness put a stop to the son's intended servility, 
and Scarron lamented his fate in a letter to Pellisson : 

' O mille ^cus, par malheur retranches, 
Que vous pouviez m epargner de peches ! 
Quand un valet me dit, tremblant et have, 
Nous n'avons plus de buches dans la cave 
Que pour aller jusqu'^ demain inatin, 
Je peste alors sur mon chien de destin, 
Sur le grand froid, sur le bois de la greve, 
Qu'on vend si cher, et qui si-tot s'achjve. 
Je jure alors, et m^me je medis 
De Taction de monpere etourdi, 
Quand sans songer a ce qu'il allait faire 
II mebaucha sous un astre contraire, 
Et m'acheva par un discours manclit 
Qu'il fit depuis sur un certain edit.' 



The Office of the QiieeiUs Pntient. 241 

The father died in exile : his second wife had spent the 
greater part of the son's fortune, and secured the rest for her 
own children. Scarron was left with a mere pittance, and, to 
complete his troubles, was involved in a lawsuit about, the pro- 
perty. The cripple, with his usual impudence, resolved to 
plead his own cause, and did it only too well ; he made the 
judges laugh so loud that they took the whole thing to be a 
farce on his part, and gave — most ungratefully — judgment 
against him. 

Glorious days were those for the penniless, halcyon days for 
the toady and the sycophant. There was still much of the old 
oriental munificence about the court, and sovereigns like Maza- 
rin and Louis XIV. granted pensions for a copy of flattering 
verses, or gave away places as the reward of a judicious speech. 
Sinecures were legion, yet to many a holder they were no sine- 
cures at all, for they entailed constant servility and a complete 
abdication of all freedom of opinion. 

Scarron was nothing more than a merry buffoon. Many 
another man has gained a name for his mirth, but most of them 
have been at least independent. Scarron seems to have cared 
for nothing that was honourable or dignified. He laughed at 
ever}^thing but money, and at that he smiled, though it is only 
fair to say that he was never avaricious, but only cared for ease 
and a little luxury. 

When Richelieu died, and the gentler, but more subtle Maza- 
rin mounted his throne, Madame de Hautefort made another 
attempt to present \\tx protege to the queen, and this time suc- 
ceeded. Anne of Austria had heard of the quaint little man 
who could laugh over a lawsuit in which his whole fortune was 
staked, and received him graciously. He begged for some 
place to support him. What could he do ? What was he fit 
for? * Nothing, your majesty, but the important office of The 
Queen's Patient ; for that I am fully qualified.' Anne smiled, 
and Scarron from that time styled himself * par la grace de Dieu, 
le malade de la Reine.' But there was no stipend attached to 
this novel office. Mazarin procured him a pension of 500 
crowns. He was then publishing his 'Typhon, or tlie Gigan- 
tomachy,' and dedicated it to the cardinal, with an adulatory 

16 



242 ^ Give 7ne a Simple Beneficed 

sonnet. He forwarded the great man a splendidly bound copy, 
which was accepted with nothing more than thanks. In a rage 
the author suppressed the sonnet and substituted a satire. This 
piece was bitterly cutting, and terribly true. It galled Mazarin 
to the heart, and he was undignified enough to revenge himself 
by cancelling the poor little pension of ;£^6o per annum which 
had previously been granted to the writer. Scarron having lost 
his pension, soon afterwards asked for an abbey, but was re- 
fused. ^ Then give me,' said he, ^ a simple benefice, so simple, 
indeed, that all its duties will be comprised in believing in God.' 
But Scarron had the satisfaction of gaining a great name among 
the cardinal's many enemies, and with none more so than De 
Retz, then coadjuteur''^ to the Archbishop of Paris, and already 
deeply implicated in the Fronde movement. To insure the 
favour of this rising man, Scarron determined to dedicate to 
him a work he was just about to publish, and on which he 
justly prided himself as by far his best. This was the * Roman 
Comique,' the only one of his productions which is still read. 
That it should be read, I can quite understand, on account not 
only of the ease of its style, but of the ingenuity of its im- 
probable plots, the truth of the characters, and the charming 
bits of satire which are found here and there, like gems amid a 
mass of mere fun. The scene is laid at Mans, the town in 
which the author had himself perpetrated his chief follies ; and 
many of the characters were probably drawn from life, while it 
is likely enough that some of the stories were taken from facts 
which had there come to his knowledge. As in many of the 
romances of that age, a number of episodes are introduced into 
the main story, which consists of the adventures of a strolling 
company. These are mainly amatory, and all indelicate, while 
some are as coarse as anything in French literature. Scarron 
had little of the clear wit of Rabelais to atone for this ; but he 
makes up for it, in a measure, by the utter absurdity of some 
of his incidents. Not the least curious part of the book is the 
Preface, in which he gives a description of himself, in order to 
contradict, as he affirms, the extravagant reports circulated 

* Coadjuteur. — A high office in the Church of Rome. 




A KOYAL KOUBKR. 



^ee p. 218 



I 



Scarroiis Description of Himself, 243 

about him, to the effect that he was set upon a table, in a cage, 
or that his hat was fastened to the ceiling by a pulley, that he 
might ' pluck it up or let it down, to do compliment to a friend, 
who honoured him with a visit.' This description is'^a tolerable 
specimen of his style, and we give it in the quaint language of 
an old translation, published in 1741 : — 

* I am past thirty, as thou may'st see by the back of my 
Chair. If I live to be forty, I shall add the Lord knows how 
many Misfortunes to those I have already suffered for these 
eight or nine Years past. There was a Time when my Stature 
was not to be found fault with, tho' now 'tis of the smallest. 
My Sickness has taken me shorter by a Foot. My Head is 
somewhat too big, considering my Height ; and my Face is full 
enough, in all Conscience, for one that carries such a Skeleton 
of a Body about him. I have Hair enough on my Head not 
to stand in need of a Peruke ; and 'tis gray, too, in spite of the 
Proverb. My Sight is good enough, tho' my Eyes are large ; 
they are of a blue Colour, and one of them is sunk deeper into 
my Head than the other, which was occasion'd by my leaning 
on that Side. My Nose is well enough mounted. My Teeth, 
which in the Days of Yore look'd like a Row of square Pearl, 
are now of an Ashen Colour ; and in a few Years more, will 
have the Complexion of a Small-coal Man's Saturday Shirt. I 
have lost one Tooth and a half on the left Side, and two and a 
half precisely on the right ; and I have two more that stand 
somewhat out of their Ranks. My Legs and Thighs, in the 
first place, compose an obtuse Angle, then a right one, and 
lastly an acute. My Thighs and Body make another ; and my 
Head, leaning perpetually over my Belly, I fancy makes me 
not very unlike the Letter Z. My Arms are shortened, as well 
as my Legs ; and my Fingers as well as my Arms. In short, 
I am a living Epitome of human Misery. This, as near as I 
can give it, is my Shape. Since I am got so far, I will e'en tell 
thee something of my Humour. Under the Rose, be it spoken, 
Courteous Reader, I do tliis only to swell the Bulk of my Book, 
at the Request of the Bookseller — the poor Dog, it seems, 
being afraid he should be a Loser by this Impression, if he did 
not give Buyer enough for his Money.' 

16-2 



244 hnprovidence and Servility. 

This allusion to the publisher reminds us that, on the sup- 
pression of his pension — on hearing of which Scarron only 
said, ^ I should like, then, to suppress myself — he had to live 
on the profits of his works. In later days it was Madame 
Scarron herself who often carried them to the bookseller's, when 
there was not a penny in the house. The publisher was Quinet, 
and the merry wit, when asked whence he drew his income, used 
to reply with mock haughtiness, ' De mon Marquisat de Quinet.' 
His comedies, which have been described as mere burlesques — 
I confess I have never read them, and hope to be absolved — 
were successful enough, and if Scarron had known how to keep 
what he made, he might sooner or later have been in easy cir- 
cumstances. He knew neither that nor any other art of self- 
restraint, and, therefore, was in perpetual vicissitudes of riches 
and penury. At one time he could afford to dedicate a piece 
to his sister's greyhound, at another he was servile in his address 
to some prince or duke. 

In the latter spirit, he humbled himself before Mazarin, in 
spite of the publication of his ' Mazarinade,' and was, as he 
might have expected, repulsed. He then turned to Fouquet, 
the new Surintendant de Finances, who was liberal enough with 
the public money, which he so freely embezzled, and extracted 
from him a pension of i,6oo francs (about ;^64). In one way 
or another, he got back a part of the property his stepmother 
had alienated from him, and obtained a prebend in the diocese 
of Mans, which made up his income to something more re- 
spectable. 

He was now able to indulge to the utmost his love of society. 
In his apartment, in the Rue St. Louis, he received all the 
leaders of the Fronde, headed by De Retz, and bringing with 
them their pasquinades on Mazarin, which the easy Italian read 
and laughed at and pretended to heed not at all. Politics, 
however, was not the staple of the conversation at Scarron's. 
He was visited as a curiosity, as a clever buffoon, and those 
who came to see, remained to laugh. He kept them all alive 
by his coarse, easy, impudent wit ; in which there was more 
vulgarity and dirtiness than ill-nature. He had a fund of hon- 
hommie, which set his visitors at their ease, for no one was 



The Society at Scarroiis. 245 

afraid of being bitten by the chained dog they came to pat 
His salon became famous ; and the admission to it was a di- 
ploma of wit. He kept out all the dull, and ignored all the 
simply great. Any man who could say a good tlpng, tell a 
good story, write a good lampoon, or mimic a fool, was a welcome 
guest. Wits mingled with pedants, courtiers with poets. Abbds 
and gay women were at home in the easy society of the cripple, 
and circulated freely round his dumb-waiter. 

The ladies of the party were not the most respectable in 
Paris, yet some who were models of virtue met there, without 
a shudder, many others who were patterns of vice. Ninon de 
I'Enclos — then young — though age made no alteration in 
her — and already slaying her scores, and ruining her hundreds 
of admirers, there met Madame de Sevigne, the most respect- 
able, as well as the most agreeable, woman of that age. Ma- 
demoiselle de Scudery, leaving, for the time, her twelve-volume 
romance, about Cyrus and Ibrahim, led on a troop of Molifere's 
Precieuses Ridicules, and here recited her verses, and talked 
pedantically to Pellisson, the ugliest man in Paris, of whom 
Boileau wrote : 

* L'or meme k Pellisson donne un teint de beauts. ' 

Then there was Madame de la Sabliere, who was as masculine 
as her husband the marquis was effeminate ; the Duchesse de 
Lesdiguieres, who was so anxious to be thought a wit that she 
employed the Chevalier de Mer^ to make her one ; and the 
Comtesse de la Suze, a clever but foolish woman. 

The men were poets, courtiers, and pedants. Menage with 
his tiresome memory, Montreuil and Marigni the song-writers, 
the elegant De Grammont, Turenne, Coligni, the gallant Abb^ 
Tetu, and many another celebrity, thronged the rooms where 
Scarron sat in his curious wheelbarrow. 

The conversation was decidedly light ; often, indeed, obscene, 
in spite of the presence of ladies ; but always witty. The hos- 
tility of Scarron to the reigning cardinal was a great recom- 
mendation, and when all else flagged, or the cripple had an 
unusually sharp attack, he had but to start with a line of his 
* Mazarinadc,' and out came a fresh lampoon, a new caricature, 
or fresh rounds of wit fired off at the Italian, from the well-filled 



246 The Witty Conversation. 

cartridge-boxes of the guests, many of whom kept their mots 
ready made up for discharge. 

But a change came over the spirit of the paralytic's dream. 
In the Rue St. Louis, close to Scarron's, lived a certain Madame 
Neuillant, who visited him as a neighbour, and one day excited 
his curiosity by the romantic history of a mother and daughter, 
who had long Hved in Martinique, who had been ruined by the 
extravagance and follies of a reprobate husband and father; 
and were now living in great poverty — the daughter being sup- 
ported by Madame de Neuillant herself. The good-natured 
cripple was touched by this story, and begged His neighbour to, 
bring the unhappy ladies to one of his parties. The evening 
came ; the abbe was, as usual, surrounded by a circle of lady 
wits, dressed in the last fashions, flaunting their fans, and laugh- 
ing merrily at his salHes. Madame de Neuillant was announced, 
and entered, followed by a simply-dressed lady, with the melan- 
choly face of one broken-down by misfortunes, and a pretty girl 
of fifteen. The contrast between the new-comers and the 
fashionable hahituees around him at once struck the abbe. The 
girl was not only badly, but even shabbily dressed, and the 
shortness of her gown showed that she had grown out of it, 
and could not afford a new one. The grandes dames turned 
upon her their eye-glasses, and whispered comments behind 
their fans. She was very pretty, they said, very interesting, 
elegant, lady-like, and so on ; but, parbleu I how shamefully 
mal mise I The new-comers were led up to the cripple's dumb- 
waiter, and the grandes dames drew back their ample petticoats 
as they passed. The young girl was overcome with shame; 
their whispers reached her ; she cast down her pretty eyes, and 
growing more and more confused, she could bear it no longer, 
and burst into tears. The abbe and his guests were touched by 
her shyness, and endeavoured to restore her confidence. Scarron 
himself leant over, and whispered a few kind words in her ear ; 
then breaking out into some happy pleasantry, he gave her time 
to recover her composure. Such was the first debut in Parisian 
society of Fran9oise d'Aubigne, who was destined, as Madame 
Scarron, to be afterwards one of its leaders, and, as Madame 
de Maintenon, to be its ruler. 



N 



Fj^aufoise d'Atdngne's Debut. 247 

Some people are cursed with bad sons — some with erring 
daughters. Fran9oise d'Aubigne was long the victim of a wicked 
father. Constans d'Aubigne belonged to an old and honourable 
family, and was the son of that famous old Huguenot general, 
Theodore- Agrippa d'Aubigne, who fought for a long time under 
Henry of Navarre, and in his old age wrote the history of his 
times. To counterbalance this distinction, the son Constans 
brought all the discredit he could on the family. After a reck- 
less life, in which he squandered his patrimony, he married a 
rich widow, and then, it is said, contrived to put her out of the 
way. He was imprisoned as a murderer, but acquitted for want 
of evidence. The story goes, that he was liberated by the 
daughter of the governor of the gaol, whom he had seduced in 
the prison, and whom he married when free. He sought to re- 
trieve his fortune in the island of Martinique, ill-treated his 
wife, and eventually ran away, and left her and her children to 
their fate. They followed him to France, and found him again 
incarcerated. Madame d'Aubigne was foolishly fond of her 
good-for-nothing spouse, and lived with him in his cell, where 
the little Fran9oise, who had been born in prison, was now 
educated. 

Rescued from starvation by a worthy Huguenot aunt, Madame 
de Vilette, the little girl was brought up as a Protestant, and a 
very stanch one she proved for a time. But Madame d'Au- 
bigne, who- was a Romanist, would not allow her to remain 
long under the Calvinist lady's protection, and sent her to be 
converted by her godmother, the Madame de Neuillant above 
mentioned. This woman, who was as merciless as a woman 
can be, literally broke her into Romanism, treated her like a 
servant, made her groom the horses, and comb the maid's hair, 
and when all these efforts failed, sent her to a convent to be 
finished off. The nuns did by specious reasoning what had 
been begun by persecution, and young Fran9oise, at the time 
she was introduced to Scarron, was a highly respectable mem- 
ber of * the only true church.' 

Madame d'Aubigne was at this time supporting herself by 
needlework. Her sad story won the sympathy of Scarron's 
guests, who united to relieve her wants. La belle Indienne^ as 



248 Matrimonial Considerations, 

the cripple styled her, soon became a favourite at his parties, 
and lost her shyness by degrees. Ninon de I'Enclos, who did 
not want heart, took her by the hand, and a friendship thus 
commenced between that inveterate Lais and the future wife 
of Louis XIV. which lasted till death. 

The beauty of Fran9oise soon brought her many admirers, 
among whom was even one of Ninon's slaves ; but as marriage 
was not the object of these attentions, and the young girl would 
not relinquish her virtue, she remained for some time unmarried 
but respectable. Scarron was particularly fond of her, and well 
knew that, portionless as she was, the poor girl would have but 
little chance of making a match. His kindness touched her, 
his wit charmed her; she pitied his infirmities, and as his 
neighbour, frequently saw and tried to console him. On the 
other hand the cripple, though forty years old, and in a state 
of health which it is impossible to describe, fell positively in 
love with the young girl, who alone of all the ladies who visited 
him combined wit with perfect modesty. He pitied her desti- 
tution. There was mutual pity, and we all know what passion 
that feeling is akin to. 

Still, for a paralytic, utterly unfit for marriage in any point of 
view, to oifer to a beautiful young girl, would have seemed 
ridiculous, if not unpardonable. But let us take into account 
the difference in ideas of matrimony between ourselves and the 
French. We must remember that marriage has always been 
regarded among our neighbours as a contract for mutual benefit, 
into which the consideration of money of necessity entered 
largely. It is true that some qualities are taken as equivalents 
for actual cash : thus, if a young man has a straight and well- 
cut nose he may sell himself at a higher price than a young man 
there with the hideous pug ; if a girl is beautiful, the marquis 
will be content with some thousands of francs less for her 
dower than if her hair were red or her complexion irreclaimably 
brown. If Julie has a pretty foot, a svelte waist, and can play 
the piano thunderingly, or sing in the charmingest soprana, her 
ten thousand francs are quite as acceptable as those of stout, 
awkward, glum-faced Jeannette. The faultless boots and yel- 



* Scarrofis Wife will live for Ever' 249 

low kids of young Adolplie counterbalance the somewhat apo- 
cryphal vicomte of ill-kempt and ill-attired Henri. 

But then there must be some fortune. A Frenchman is so 
much in the habit of expecting it, that he thinks it ^Imost a 
crime to fall in love where there is none. Fran9oise, pretty, 
clever, agreeable as she was, was penniless, and even worse, 
she was the daughter of a man who had been imprisoned on 
suspicion of murder, and a woman who had gained her liveli- 
hood by needlework. All these considerations made the fancy 
of the merry abbe' less ridiculous, and Fran9oise herself, being 
sufficiently versed in the ways of the world to understand the 
disadvantage under which she laboured, was less amazed and 
disgusted than another girl might have been, when, in due 
course, the cripple offered her himself and his dumb-waiter. 
He had Httle more to give — his pension, a tiny income from 
his prebend and his Marquisat de Quinet. 

The offer of the little man was not so amusing as other epi- 
sodes of his life. He went honestly to work ; represented to 
her what a sad lot would hers be, if Madame de Neuillant died, 
and what were the temptations of beauty without a penny. 
His arguments were more to the point than delicate, and he 
talked to the young girl as if she was a woman of the world 
Still, she accepted him, cripple as he was. 

Madame de Neuillant made no objecrion, for she was only 
too glad to be rid of a beauty, who ate and drank, but did not 
marry. 

On the making of the contract, Scarron's fun revived. When 
asked by the notary what was the young lady's fortune, he re- 
pHed : ' Four louis, two large wicked eyes, one fine figure, one 
pair of good hands, and lots of mind.' ^ And what do you give 
her ?' asked the lawyer.—' Immortality,' replied he, with the 
air of a bombastic poet. ' The names of the wives of kings die 
with them— that of Scarron's wife will live for ever !' 

His marriage obliged him to give up his canonry, which he 
sold to Mc-nage's man-servant, a little bit of simony which was 
not even noticed in those days. It is amusing to find a man 
who laughed at all religion, insisting that his wife should make 
a formal avowal of the Romish faith. Of the character of this 



250 Petits Soupers. 

marriage we need say no more than that Scarron had at that 
time the use of no more than his eyes, tongue, and hands. Yet 
such was then, as now, the idea of matrimony in France, that 
the young lady's friends considered her fortunate. 

Scarron in love was a picture which amazed and amused the 
whole society of Paris, but Scarron married was still more curious. 
The queen, when she heard of it, said that Fran^oise would be 
nothing but a useless bit of furniture in his house. She proved 
not only the most useful appendage he could have, but the sal- 
vation alike of his soul and his reputation. The woman who 
charmed Louis XIV. by her good sense, had enough of it to 
see Scarron's faults, and prided herself on reforming him as far 
as it was possible. Her husband had hitherto been the great 
Nestor of indelicacy, and when he was induced to give it up, 
the rest followed his example. Madame Scarron checked the 
licence of the abbe's conversation, and even worked a benefi- 
cial change in his mind. 

The joviality of their parties still continued. Scarron had 
always been famous for his petits soupers, the fashion of which 
he introduced, but as his poverty would not allow him to give 
them in proper style, his friends made a pic-nic of it, and each 
one either brought or sent his own dish of ragout, or whatever 
it might be, and his own bottle of wine. This does not seem 
to have been the case after the marriage, however ; for it is re- 
lated as a proof of Madame Scarron's conversational powers, 
that, when one evening a poorer supper than usual was served, 
the waiter whispered in her ear, ^Tell them another story, 
Madame, if you please, for we have no joint to-night.' Still 
both guests and host could well afford to dispense with the 
coarseness of the cripple's talk, which might raise a. laugh, but 
must sometimes have caused disgust, and the young wife of 
sixteen succeeded in making him purer both in his conversation 
and his writings. 

The household she entered was indeed a villainous one. 
Scarron rather gloried in his early delinquencies, and, to add 
to this, his two sisters had characters far from estimable. One 
of them had been maid of honour to the Princesse de Conti, 
but had given up her appointment to become the mistress of 



Scarrofis last Moments, 251 

the Due de Tremes. The laugher laughed even at his sister's 
dishonour, and allowed her to live in the same house on a 
higher etage. When, on one occasion, some one called on him 
to solicit the lady's interest with the duke, he coolly said, * You 
are mistaken; it is not I who know the duke; go up'Lto the 
next storey.' The offspring of this connection he styled ^ his 
nephews after the fashion of the Marais.' Frangoise did her 
best to reclaim this sister and to conceal her shame, but the 
laughing abbe made no secret of it. 

But the laugher was approaching his end. His attacks be- 
came more and more violent : still he laughed at them. Once 
he was seized witti a terrible choking hiccup, which threatened 
to suffocate him. The first moment he could speak he cried, 
* If I get well, I'll write a satire on the hiccup.' The priests 
came about him, and his wife did what she could to bring him 
to a sense of his future danger. He laughed at the priests and 
at his wife's fears. She spoke of hell. ^ If there is such a 
place,' he answered, ^ it won't be for me, for without you I must 
have had my hell in this life.' The priests told him, by way of 
consolation, that ^ God had visited him more than any man.' — 
' He does me too much honour,' answered the mocker. * You 
should give him thanks,' urged the ecclesiastic. ' I can't see 
for what,' was the shameless answer. 

On his death-bed he parodied a will, leaving to Corneille 
' two hundred pounds of patience ; to Boileau (with whom he 
had a long feud), the gangrene; and to the Academy, the 
power to alter the French language as they liked.' His legacy 
in verse to his wife is grossly disgusting, and quite unfit for 
quotation. Yet he loved her well, avowed that his chief grief 
in dying was the necessity of leaving her, and begged her to 
remember him sometimes, and to lead a virtuous life. 

His last moments were as jovial as any. When he saw his 
friends weeping around him he shook his head and cried, ' I 
shall never make you weep as much as I have made you laugh.' 
A little later a softer thought of hope came across him. * No 
more sleeplessness, no more gout,' he murmured ; * the Queen's 
patient will be well at last.' At length the laugher was sobered. In 
the presence of death, at the gates of a new world, he muttered, 



252 A Lesson for Gay and Grave, 

half afraid, ' I never thought it was so easy to laugh at death/ 
and so expired. This was in October, 1660, when the cripple 
had reached the age of fifty. 

Thus died a laugher. It is unnecessary here to trace the 
story of his widow's strange rise to be the wife of a king. Scar- 
ron was no honour to her, and in later years she tried to forget 
his existence. Boileau fell into disgrace for merely mentioning 
his name before the king. Yet Scarron was in many respects 
a better man than Louis ; and, laugher as he was, he had a 
good heart. There is a time for mirth and a time for mourning, 
the Preacher tells us. Scarron never learned this truth, and 
he laughed too much and too long. Yet let us not end the. 
laugher's life in sorrow : 

' It is well to be merry and wise,* &c. 

Let us be merry as the poor cripple, who bore his sufferings so 
well, and let us be wise too. There is a lesson for gay and 
grave in the life of Scarron, the laugher. 




-1 



FRANCOIS DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT 

I 

AND THE DUC DE SAINT-SIMON. 



Rank and Good Breeding. — ^The Hotel de Rochefoucault. — Racine and his 
Plays. — La Rochefoucault's Wit and Sensibility. — Saint Simon's Youth. — 
Looking out for a Wife. — Saint-Simon's Court Life. — ^The History of Louise 
de la Valliere. — A mean Act of Louis Quatorze. — All has passed away. — 
Saint-Simon's Memoirs of His Own Time. 




HE precursor of Saint-Simon, the model of Lord 
Chesterfield, this ornament of his age, belonged, as 
well as Saint-Simon, to that state of society in 
France which was characterised — as Lord John Russell, in his 
* Memoirs of the Duchess of Orleans,' tells us — by an idolatry 
of power and station. * God would not condemn a person of 
that rank,' was the exclamation of a lady of the old regime, on 
hearing, that a notorious sinner, * Pair de France,' and one 
knows not what else, had gone to his account impenitent and 
unabsolved ; and though the sentiment may strike us as profane, 
it was, doubtless, genuine. 

Rank, however was often adorned by accomplishments 
which, like an exemption from rules of conduct, it almost 
claimed as a privilege. Good-breeding was a science in France ; 
natural to a peasant, even, it was studied as an epitome of all 
the social virtues. ' N^etre pas poll ' was the sum total of all 
dispraise : a man could only recover from it by splendid valour 
or rare gifts; a woman could not hope to rise out of that 
Slough of Despond to which good-breeding never came. We 
were behind all the arts of civilization in England, as Francois 
de Rochefoucault (we give the orthography of the present day) 
was in his cradle. This brilliant personage, who combined the 



254 Rank and Good Breeding. 

wit and the moralist, the courtier and the soldier, the man or 
literary tastes and the sentimentalist /^r^^(r<?//<?;^<;^, was born in 
1 6 13. In addition to his hereditary title of due, he had the 
empty honour, as Saint-Simon call it, of being Prince de Mar- 
sillac, a designation which was lost in that of Dela RochefoucauU 
— so famous even to the present day. As he presented himself 
at the court of the regency, over which Anne of Austria nomi- 
nally presided, no youth there was more distinguished for his 
elegance or for the fame of his exploits during the wars of the 
Fronde than this youthful scion of an illustrious house. En- 
dowed by nature with a pleasing countenance, and, what was 
far more important in that fastidious region, an air of dignity, 
he displayed wonderful contradictions in his character and 
bearing. He had, says Madame de Maintenon, ' beaucoup 
d'esprit, et peu de savoir ;' an expressive phrase. ^ He was,' she 
adds, * pliant in nature, intriguing, and cautious ;' nevertheless 
she never, she declares, possessed a more steady friend, nor one 
more confiding and better adapted to advise. Brave as he was, 
he held personal valour, or affected to do so, in light estimation. 
His ambition was to rule others. Lively in conversation, 
though naturally pensive, he assembled around him all that 
Paris or Versailles could present of wit and intellect. 

The old Hotel de Rochefoucault, in the Rue de Seine, in 
the Faubourg St. Germain, in Paris, still grandly recalls the 
assemblies in which Racine, Boileau, Madame de Sevigne, the 
La Fayettes, and the famous Duchesse de Longueville, used to 
assemble. The time honoured family of De la Rochefoucault 
still preside there; though one of its fairest ornaments, the 
young, lovely, and pious Duchesse de la Rochefoucault of our 
time, died in 1852 — one of the first known victims to diphtheria 
in France, in that unchanged old locality. There, where the 
De Longuevilles, the Mazarins, and those who had formed the 
famous council of state of Anne of Austria had disappeared, the 
poets and wits who gave to the age of Louis XIV. its true 
brilliancy, collected around the Due de la Rochefoucault. What 
a scene it must have been in those days, as Buffon said of the 
earth in spring ^ tout four-inilk de vie P Let us people the salon 
of the Hotel de Rochefoucault with visions of the past ; see 






The Hotel de Rochefoiicatdt, 255 

the host there, in his chair, a martyr to the gout, which he bore 
with all the cheerfulness of a Frenchman, and picture to orj"- 
selves the great men who were handing him his cushion, or 
standing near h\?> faiiteiuL 

Racine's joyous face may be imagined asrie come4 in fresh 
from the College of Harcourt. Since he was born in 1639, he 
had not arrived at his zenith till La Rochefoucault was almost 
past his prime. For a man at thirty-six in France can no 
longer talk prospectively of the departure of youth ; it is gone. 
A single man of thirty, even in Paris, is ' im vieux garden / life 
begins too soon and ends too soon with those pleasant sinners, 
the French. And Racine, when he was first routed out of 
Port Royal, where he was educated, and presented to the 
whole Faubourg St. Germain, beheld his patron, La Rochefou- 
cault, in the position of a disappointed man. An early adven- 
ture of his youth had humbled, perhaps, the host of the Hotel 
de Rochefoucault. At the battle of St. Antoine, where he had 
distinguished himself, ^ a musket-ball had nearly deprived him of 
sight. On this occasion he had quoted these lines, taken 
from the tragedy of ^ Alcyonnee,^ It must, however, be pre- 
mised that the famous Duchess de Longueville had urged him 
to engage in the wars of the Fronde. To her these lines were 
addressed : — 

' Pour mdriter son cocur, pour plaire k ses beaux yeux, 
J'ai fait la guerre aux Rois, je I'aurais faite aux dieux.' 

But now he had broken off his intimacy with the duchesse, 
and he therefore parodied these lines : — 

' Pour ce cneur inconstant, qu'enfin jc connais mieux, 
J'ai fait la guerre aux Rois, j'en ai perdue les yeux.' 

Nevertheless, La Rochefoucault was still the gay, charming, 
witty host and courtier. Racine composed, in 1660, his '' Nymphe 
dc Seine,' in honour of the marriage of Louis XIV., and was 
then brought into notice of tliose whose notice was no empty 
compliment, such as, in our day, illustrious dukes pay to more 
ilhistrious authors, by asking them to be jumbled in a crowd at 
a time when the rooks are beginning to caw. Wc catch, as 
the}' may, the shadow of a dissolving water-ice, or see tlie exit 



256 Racine and his Plays, 

of an unattainable tray of negus. No ; in the days of Racine, 
ai in those of Hahfax and Swift in England, solid fruits grew 
out of fulsome praise ; and Colbert, then minister, settled a 
pension of six hundred livres, as francs were called in those 
days (twenty-four pounds), on the poet. And with this the 
former pupil of Port Royal was fain to be content. Still he 
was so poor that he ahnost went into the church, an uncle offer- 
ing to resign him a priory of his order if he would become a 
regular. He was a candidate for orders, and wore a sacerdotal 
dress when he wrote the tragedy of ^ Theagenes,' and that of 
the ^Freres Ennemis,' the subject of which was given him by 
Moliere. 

He continued, in spite of a quarrel with the saints of Port 
Royal, to produce noble dramas from time to time, but quitted 
theatrical pursuits after bringing out (in 1677) Thedre,' that chef- 
(TcEuvre not only of its author, but, as a performance, of the 
unhappy but gifted Rachel. Corneille was old, and Paris 
looked to Racine to supply his place, yet he left the theatrical 
world for ever. Racine had been brought up with deep religious 
convictions ; they could not, however, preserve him from a 
mad, unlawful attachment. He loved the actress Champmesle : 
but repentance came. He resolved not only to write no more 
plays, but to do penance for those already given to the world. 
He was on the eve of becoming, in his penitence, a Carthusian 
friar, when his religious director advised marriage instead. He 
humbly did as he was told, and united himself to the daughter 
of a treasurer for France, of Amiens, by whom he had seven 
children. It was only at the request of Madame de Maintenon 
that he wrote ^ Esther' for the convent of St. Cyr, where it was 
first acted. 

His death was the result of his benevolent, sensitive nature. 
Having drawn up an excellent paper on the miseries of the 
people, he gave it to Madame de Maintenon to read it to the 
king. Louis, in a transport of ill-humour, said, * What ! does 
he suppose because he is a poet that he ought to be minister 
of state ?' Racine is said to have been so wounded by this 
speech that he was attacked by a fever and died. His decease 



La RocJicfoiicaiilfs Wit and SejisibUlty. 257 

took place in 1699, nineteen years after that of La Rcchefou- 
cault, who died in 1680. 

Amongst the circle whom La Rochefoucault loved to as- 
semble were Boileau, Despreaux, and Madame de Se'vign^ — 
the one whose wit and the other whose grace conTpleted the 
delights of that salon. A life so prosperous as La Rochefou- 
cault's had but one cloud — the death of his son who was killed 
during the passage of the French troops over the Rhine. We 
attach to the character of this accomplished man the charms 
of wit ; we may also add the higher attractions of sensibility. 
Notwithstanding the worldly and selfish character which is 
breathed forth in his ' Maxims and Reflections/ there lay at 
the bottom of his heart true piety. Struck by the death of a 
neighbour, this sentiment seems even on the point of being 
expressed ; but, adds Madame de Sevigne, and her phrase is 
untranslatable, ^ Hit! est pas effleicre' 

All has passed away ! the Fronde has become a memory, not 
a realized idea. Old people shake their heads, and talk of 
Richelieu ; of his gorgeous palace at Rueil, with its lake and 
its prison thereon, and its mysterious dungeons, and its avenues 
of chestnuts, and its fine statues ; and of its cardinal, smiling, 
whilst the worm that never dieth is eating into his very heart ; 
a seared conscience, and playing the fine gentleman to fine 
ladies in a rich stole, and with much garniture of costly lace : 
whilst beneath all is the hair shirt, that type of penitence and 
sanctity which he ever wore as a salvo against all that passion 
and ambition that almost burst the beating heart beneath that 
hair shirt. Richelieu has gone to his fathers. Mazarin comes 
on the scene ; the wily, grasping Italian. He too vanishes ; 
and forth, radiant in youth, and strong in power, comes Louis, 
and the reign of politeness and j)criwigs begins. 

The Due de Saint-Simon, perhaps the greatest portrait- 
painter of any time, has familiarized us with the greatness, the 
littleness, the graces, the defects of that royal actor on the 
stage of Europe, whom his own age entitled Louis the Great. 
A wit, in his writings, of the first order — if we comjirisc under 
the head of wit the deepest discernment, the most penetrating 
satire — Saint-Simon was also a soldier, philosopher, a reformer, 

17 



258 Saint-Simons Youth, 

a Trappist, and, eventually, a devotee. Like all young men who 
wished for court favour, he began by fighting : Louis cared little 
for carpet knights. He entered, however, into a scene which 
he has chronicled with as much fidelity as our journalists do 
a police report, and sat quietly down to gather observations — 
not for , his own fame, not even for the amusement of his chil- 
dren or grandchildren — but for the edification of posterity yet 
a century afar off his own time. The treasures were buried 
until 1829. 

A word or two about Saint-Simon and his youth. At nine- 
teen he was destined by his mother to be married. Now every 
one knows how marriages are managed in France, not only in 
the time of Saint-Simon, but even to the present day. A mother 
or an aunt, or a grandmother, or an experienced friend, looks 
out ; be it for son, be it for daughter, it is the business of her 
life. She looks and she finds : family, suitable ; fortune, con- 
venient ; person, pas mat; principles. Catholic, with a due ab- 
horrence of heretics, especially English ones. After a time, 
the lady is to be looked at by the unhappy /r^/^;^^^// a church, 
a mass, or vespers, being very often the opportunity agreed. 
The victim thinks she will do. The proposal is discussed by 
the two mammas ; relatives are called in ; all goes well ; the con- 
tract is signed ; then, a measured acquaintance is allowed : but 
no tete-a-tetes ; no idea of love. ' What ! so indelicate a sentiment 
before marriage ! Let me not hear of it,' cries mamma, in a 
sanctimonious panic. ' Love ! Quelle betise P adds mo7i pere. 

But Saint-Simon, it seems, had the folly to wish to make a 
marriage of inclination. Rich, pair de France, his father — an 
old roue, who had been page to Louis XIII. — dead, he felt ex- 
tremely alone in the world. He cast about to see whom he 
could select. The Due de Beauvilliers had eight daughters ; a 
misfortune, it may be thought, in France or anywhere else. 
Not at all : three of the young ladies were kept at home, to be 
married ; the other five were at once disposed of, as they passed 
the unconscious age of infancy, in convents. Saint-Simon was, 
however, disappointed. He offered, indeed ; first for the eldest, 
who was not then fifteen years old ; and finding that she had a 
vocation for a conventual life, went on to the third, and was 



Saint- Simons Court Life. 259 

going through the whole family, when he was convinced that 
his suit was impossible. The eldest daughter happened to be 
a disciple of Fenelon's, and was on the very eve of being vowed 
to heaven. r 

Saint-Simon went off to La Trappe, to console himself for his 
disappointment. There had been an old intimacy between 
Monsieur La Trappe and the father of Saint-Simon ; and this 
friendship had induced him to buy an estate close to the ancient 
abbey where La Trappe still existed. The friendship became 
hereditary ; and Saint-Simon, though still a youth, revered and 
loved the penitent recluse of Ferte au Vidame^ of which Lamar- 
tine has written so grand and so poetical a description. 

Let us hasten over his marriage with Mademoiselle de Lorges, 
who proved a good wife. It was this time a grandmother, the 
Marechale de Lorges, who managed the treaty; and Saint- 
Simon became the happy husband of an innocent blonde, with 
a majestic air, though only fifteen years of age. Let us hasten 
on, passing over his presents ; his six hundred louis, given in a 
corbeille full of what he styles ' gallantries ;' his mother's dona- 
tion of jewellery; the midnight mass, by which he was linked 
to the child who scarcely knew him ; let us lay all that aside, 
and turn to his court life. 

At this juncture Louis XIV., who had hitherto dressed with 
great simplicity, indicated that he desired his court should ap- 
pear in all possible magnificence. Instantly the shops were 
emptied. Even gold and silver appeared scarcely rich enough. 
Louis himself planned many of the dresses for any public occa- 
sion. Aftenvards he repented of the extent to which he had per- 
mitted magnificence to go, but it was then impossible to check 
the excess. 

Versailles, henceforth in all its grandeur, contains an apart- 
ment which is called, from its situation, and the opportunities 
it presents of looking down upon the actors of the scene around, 
L' CEil de Bccuf. The revelations of the CEil de Ba'uf, during 
the reign of Louis XV., form one of the most amazing pic- 
tures of wickedness, venality, power misapplied, genius pol- 
luted, that was ever drawn. No one that reads that infamous 
book can wonder at the revolution of 1789. I>ct us conceive 

17 — 2 



26o The History of Louise de la Vallihe. 

Saint-Simon to have taken his stand here, in this region, pure 
in the time of Louis XIV., comparatively, and note we down 
his comments on men and women. 

He has journeyed up to court from La Trappe, which has 
fallen into confusion and quarrels, to which the most saintly 
precincts are peculiarly liable. 

The history of Mademoiselle de la Valliere was not, as he 
tells us, of his time. He hears of her death, and so indeed 
does the king, with emotion. She expired in 17 lo, in the Rue 
St. Jacques, at the Carmelite convent, where, though she was in 
the heart of Paris, her seclusion from the world had long been 
complete. Amongst the nuns of the convent none was so hum- 
ble, so penitent, so chastened as this once lovely Louise de la 
Valliere, now, during a weary term of thirty-five years, *■ Marie 
de la Misericorde.' She had fled from the scene of her fall at 
one-and-thirty years of age. Twice had she taken refuge among 
the ' blameless vestals,' whom she envied as the broken-spirited 
envy the passive. First, she escaped from the torture of wit- 
nessing the king's passion for Madame de Montespan, by hiding 
herself among the Benedictine sisters at St. Cloud. Thence 
the king fetched her in person, threatening to order the cloister 
to be burnt. Next, Lauzun, by the command of Louis, sought 
her, and brought her avec 7nain forte. The next time she fled 
no more ; but took a public farewell of all she had too fondly 
loved, and throwing herself at the feet of the queen, humbly 
entreated her pardon. Never since that voluntary sepulture 
had she ceased, during those long and weary years, to lament — 
as the heart-stricken can alone lament — her sins. In deep con- 
trition she learned the death of her son by the king, and bent 
her head meekly beneath the chastisement. 

Three years before her death the triumphant Athenee de 
Montespan had breathed her last at Bourbon. If Louis XIV. 
had nothing else to repent of, the remorse of these two women 
ought to have wrung his heart. Athenee de Montespan was a 
youthful, innocent beauty, fresh from the seclusion of provincial 
life, when she attracted the blighting regards of royalty. A 
fete was to be given ; she saw, she heard that she was its ob- , 
ject. She entreated her husband to take her back to his estate 



A Mean Act of Lotcis Quatorze, 261 

in Guyenne, and to leave her there till the king had forgotten 
her. Her husband, in fatal confidence, trusted her resistance, 
and refused her petition. It was a life-long sorrow; and he 
soon found his mistake. He lived and died passionately at- 
tached to his wife, but never saw her after her fall. ^^ 

When she retired from court, to make room for the empire 
of the subtle De Maintenon, it was her son, the Due de Maine, 
who induced her, not from love, but from ambition, to with- 
draw. She preserved, even in her seclusion in the country, the 
style of a queen, which she had assumed. Even her natural 
children by the king were never allowed to sit in her presence, 
on a faictmil, but were only permitted to have small chairs. 
Every one went to pay her court, and she spoke to them as if 
doing them an honour ; neither did she ever return a visit, even 
from the royal family. Her fatal beauty endured to the last : 
nothing could exceed her grace, her tact, her good sense in 
conversation, her kindness to every one. 

But it was long before her restless spirit could find real peace. 
She threw herself on the guidance of the Abbe de la Tour ; for 
tlie dread of death was ever upon her. He suggested a terrible 
test of her penitence. It was, that she should entreat her hus- 
band's pardon, and return to him. It was a fearful struggle 
with herself, for she was naturally haughty and high spirited ; 
but she consented. After long agonies of hesitation, she wrote 
to the injured man. Her letter was couched in the most humble 
language ; but it received no reply. The Marquis de Montes- 
pan, through a third person, intimated to her that he would 
neither receive her, nor see her, nor hear her name pronounced. 
At his death she wore widow's weeds ; but never assumed his 
arms, nor adopted his liveries. 

Henceforth, all she had was given to the poor. When I^ouis 
meanly cut down her pension, she sent word that she was sorry 
for the poor, not for herself; they would be the losers. She 
then humbled herself to the very dust : wore the hardest cloth 
next her fair skin ; had iron bracelets ; and an iron girdle, which 
made wounds on licr body. Moreover, she punished the most 
unruly members of her frame : she ke[)t her tongue in hounds ; 
she ceased to slander; she learned to bless. The fear of licalh 



262 All has passed away ! 

still haunted her ; she lay in bed with every curtain drawn, the 
room lighted up with wax candles ; whilst she hired watchers to 
sit up all night, and insisted that they should never cease talking 
or laughing, lest, when she woke, the fear of death might come 
over her affrighted spirit. 

She died at last after a few hours' illness, having just time to 
order all her household to be summoned, and before them to 
make a public confession of her sins. As she lay expiring, 
blessing God that she died far away from the children of her 
adulterous connection, the Comte d'Antin, her only child by 
the Marquis de Montespan, arrived. Peace and trust had then 
come at last to the agonized woman. She spoke to him about 
her state of mind, and expired. 

To Madame de Maintenon the event would, it was thought, 
be a relief: yet she wxpt bitterly on hearing of it. The king 
showed, on the contrary, the utmost indifference, on learning 
that one whom he had once loved so much was gone for ever. 

All has passed away ! The (Eil de Boeuf is now important 
only as being pointed out to strangers ; Versailles is a show- 
place, not a habitation. Saint-Simon, who lived until 1775, 
Avas truly said to have turned his back on the new age, and to 
live in the memories of a former world of wit and fashion. He 
survived until the era of the ' Encyclopedia ' of Voltaire, and 
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He lived, indeed, to hear that Mont- 
esquieu was no more. How the spirit of Louis XIV. spoke in 
his contemptuous remarks on Voltaire, whom he would only 
call Arouet ; ' The son of my father's and my own notary.' 

At length, after attaining his eightieth year, the chronicler, 
who knew the weaknesses, the vices, the peculiarities of man- 
kind, even to a hair's breadth, expired ; having long given up 
the court and occupied himself, whilst secluded in his country 
seat, solely with the revising and amplification of his wonderful 
Memoirs. 

No works, it has been remarked, since those of Sir Walter 
Scott, have excited so much sensation as the Memoirs of his 
own time, by the soldier, ambassador, and Trappist, Due de 
Saint-Simon. 



HORACE WALPOLE. 

The Commoners of England. — Horace's Regret for the Death of his Mother. — 
* Little Horace ' in Arlington Street. — Introduced to George I. — Charac- 
teristic Anecdote of George I. — Walpole's Education. — Schoolboy Days. — 
Boyish Friendships. — Companionship of Gray. — A Dreary Doom. — Wal- 
pole's Description of Youthful Delights. — Anecdote of Pope and Frederic of 
Wales. — The Pomfrets. — Sir Thomas Robinson's Ball. — An Admirable 
Scene. — Political Squibs. — Sir Robert's Retirement from Office. — ^The 
Splendid IMansion of Houghton. — Sir Robert's Love of Gardening. — ^What 
we owe to the ' Grandes Tours.' — George Vertue. — Men of One Idea. — ^The 
Noble Picture-gallery at Houghton. — The 'Market Pieces.' — Sir Robert's 
Death. — The Granville Faction. — A very good Quarrel. — Twickenham. — 
Strawberry Hill. — The Recluse of Strawberry. — Portraits of the Digby 
Family. — Sacrilege. — Mrs. Damer's Models. — The Long Gallery at Straw- 
berry. — The Chapel. — 'A Dirty Little Thing.' — ^The Society around Straw- 
berry Hill. — Anne Seymour Conway. — A Man who never Doubted. — Lady 
Sophia Fermor's Marriage. — Horace in Favour. — Anecdote of Sir WilHam 
Stanhope. — A Paper House. — Walpole's Habits. — Why did he not Marry? 
— ' Dowagers as Plenty as Flounders.' — Catherine Hyde, Duchess of Queens- 
berry. — Anecdote of Lady Granville. — Kitty Clive. — Death of Horatio Wal- 
pole. — George, third Earl of Orford. — A Visit to Houghton. — Family Mis- 
. fortunes. — Poor Chatterton. — Walpole's Concern withChatterton. — Walpole 
in Paris. — Anecdote of Madame Geoffrin. — ' Who's that Mr. Walpole?" — 
The Miss Berrys. — Horace's two ' Straw Berries.' — Tapping a New Reign. 
— The Sign of the Gothic Castle. — Growing Old with Dignity. — Succession 
to an Earldom. — Walpole's Last Hours. — Let us not be Ungrateful. 




AD this elegant writer, remarks the compiler of ^ Wal- 
poliana,' composed memoirs of his own life, an 
example authorized by eminent names, ancient and 
modern, every other pen must have been dropped in despair, 
so true was it that ^ he united the good sense of Fontenelle 
with the Attic salt and graces of Count Anthony Hamilton.' 

But * Horace ' was a man of great literary modesty, and 
always undervalued his own efforts. His life was one of little 
incident : it is his character, his mind, the society around him, 
the period in which he shone, that give the charm to his corre- 
spondence, and the interest to his biography. 



264 The Coinmoners cf England. 

Besides, he had the weakness common to several other fine 
gentlemen who have combined letters and /^^^/ to7t, of being 
ashamed of the literary character. The vulgarity of the court, 
its indifference to all that was not party writing, whether 
polemical or political, cast a shade over authors in his time. 

Never was there, beneath all his assumed Whig principles, 
a more profound aristocrat than Horace Walpole. He was, by 
birth, one of those well-descended English gentlemen who have 
often scorned the title of noble, and who have repudiated the 
notion of m.erging their own ancient names in modern titles. 
The commoners of England hold a proud pre-eminence. When 
some low-born man entreated James I. to make him a gentle- 
man, the well-known answer was, ^ Na, na, I canna ! I could 
mak thee a lord, but none but God Almighty can mak a 
gentleman.' 

Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards minister to George II., and 
eventually Lord. Orford, belonged to an ancient family in 
Norfolk ; he was a third son, and was originally destined for 
the Church, but the death of his elder brethren having left him 
heir to the family estate, in 1698, he succeeded to a property 
which ought to have yielded him ;^2,coo a year, but which was 
crippled with various encumbrances. In order to relieve him- 
self of these. Sir Robert married Catherine Shorter, the grand- 
daughter of Sir John Shorter, who had been illegally and 
arbitrarily appointed Lord Mayor of London by James II. 

Horace was her youngest child, and was born in Arlington 
Street, on the 24th of September, 17 17, O.S. Six years after- 
wards he was inoculated for the small-pox, a precaution which 
he records as worthy of remark, since the operation had then 
only recently been introduced by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 
from Turkey. 

He is silent, however, naturally enough, as to one important 
point — his real parentage. The character of his mother was by 
no means such as to disprove a:* assertion which gained general 
belief : this was, that Horace was the offspring, not of Sir Ro- 
bert Walpole, but of Carr, Lord Hervey, the eldest son of the 
Earl of Bristol, and the elder brother of Lord Hervey, whose 
* Memoirs of the Court of George II.' are so generally known. 



Horaces Regret for the Death of his Mother. 265 

Caxr, Lord Hervey, was witty, eccentric, and sarcastic : and 
from him Horace Walpole is said to have inherited his wit, his 
eccentricity, his love of Hterature, and his profound contempt 
for all mankind, excepting only a few members of a cherished 
and exclusive clique. r 

In the Notes of his life which Horace Walpole feft for the 
use of his executor, Robert Berry, Esq., and of his daughter, 
Miss Berry, he makes this brief mention of Lady Walpole : — • 
* My mother died in 1737.' He was then twenty years of age. 

But beneath this seemingly slight recurrence to his mother, 
a regret v/hich never left him through life was buried. Like 
Cowper, he mourned, as the profoundest of all sorrows, the 
loss of that life-long friend. 

• My mother, when I leam'd that thou wast dead, 
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed ? 
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son ? 
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun.' 

Although Horace in many points bore a strong resemblance 
to Sir Robert Walpole, he rarely if ever received from that 
jovial, heartless, able man, any proof of affection. An outcast 
from his father's heart, the whole force of the boy's love cen- 
tred in his mother ; yet in after-life no one reverenced Sir Ro- 
bert Walpole so much as his supposed son. To be adverse to 
the minister was to be adverse to the unloved son who cherished 
his memory. What *my father' thought, did, and said, was 
law ; what his foes dared to express was heresy. Horace had 
the family mania strong upon him ; the world was made for 
Walpoles, whose views were never to be" controverted, nor whose 
faith impugned. Yet Horace must have witnessed, perhaps with- 
out comprehending it, much disunion at home. Lady Walpole, 
beautiful and accomplished, could not succeed in riveting her 
husband to his conjugal duties. Gross licentiousness was the 
order of the day, and Sir Robert was among the most licen- 
tious ; he left his lovely wife to the perilous attentions of all 
the young courtiers who fancied that by courting the Premier's 
wife they could secure Walpolc's good offices. Sir Robert, ac- 
cording to Pope, was one of those who — 

* Never made a friend in private life, 
And wiis, besides, a tyrant to his wife. 



266 ' Little Horace' in Arli7tgton Street, 

At all events, if not a tyrant, he was indifferent to those cir- 
cumstances which reflected upon him, and were injurious to her. 
He was conscious that he had no right to complain of any infi- 
delity on her part, and he left her to be surrounded by men 
whom he knew to be profligates of the most dangerous preten- 
sions to wit and elegance. 

It was possibly not unfrequently that Horace, his mother's 
pet, gleaned in the drawing-rooms of Arlington Street his first 
notions of \hdX persiflage which was the fashion of the day. We 
can fancy him a precocious, old-fashioned little boy, at his mo- 
ther's apron-string, whilst Carr, Lord Hervey, was paying his 
devoirs ; we see him gazing with wondering eyes at Pulteney, 
Earl of Bath, with his blue ribbon across his laced coat ; whilst 
compassionating friends observing the pale-faced boy in that 
hot-house atmosphere, in which both mind and body were like 
forced plants, prophesied that ' little Horace' could not pos- 
sibly live to be a man. 

He survived, however, two sisters, who died in childhood, 
and became dearer and dearer to his fond mother. 

In his old age, Horace delighted in recalling anecdotes of 
his infancy; in these his mother's partiality largely figured. 
Brought up among courtiers and ministers, his childish talk was 
all of kings and princes ; and he was a gossip both by inclina- 
tion and habit. His greatest desire in life was to see the king 
— George I., and his nurses and attendants augmented his wish 
by their exalted descriptions of the grandeur which he afl'ected, 
in after-life, to despise. He entreated his mother to take him 
to St. James's. When relating the incidents of the scene in 
which he was first introduced to a court, Horace Walpole speaks 
of the ^ infinite good-nature of his father, who never thwarted 
any of his children,' and ' suffered him,' he says, ' to be too 
much indulged.' 

Some difliculties attended the fruition of the forward boy's 
wish. The Duchess of Kendal was jealous of Sir Robert Wal- 
pole's influence with the king : her aim was to bring Lord 
Bolingbroke into power. The childish fancy was, nevertheless, 
gratified : and under his mother's care he was conducted to 
the apartments of the Duchess of Kendal in St. James's. 



Introdtcced to George I. 267 

' A favour so unusual to be asked by a boy of ten years old/ 
he afterwards wrote in his ^Reminiscences/ Svas still too 
slight to be refused to the wife of the first minister and her 
darling child.' However, as it was not to be a precedent, the 
interview was to be private, and at night. 

It was ten o'clock in the evening when Lady Walpole, lead- 
ing her son, was admitted into the apartments of iMelusina de 
Schulenberg, Countess of Walsingham, who passed under the 
name of the Duchess of Kendal's niece, but who was, in fact, 
her daughter, by George I. The polluted rooms in which Lady 
Walsingham lived were afterwards occupied by the two mis- 
tresses of George II. — the Countess of Suffolk, and Madame 
de Walmoden, Countess of Yarmouth. 

With Lady Walsingham, Lady Walpole and her little son 
waited until, notice having been given that the king had come 
down to supper, he was led into the presence of ' that good 
sort of man,' as he calls George I. That monarch was pleased 
to permit the young courtier to kneel down and kiss his hand. 
A few words were spoken by the august personage, and Horace 
was led back into the adjoining room. 

But the vision of that ' good sort of man ' was present to him 
when, in old age, he wrote down his recollections for his be- 
loved Miss Berry. By the side of a tall, lean, ill-favoured old 
German lady — the Duchess of Kendal — stood a pale, short, 
elderly man, with a dark tie-wig, in a plain coat and waistcoat : 
these and his breeches were all of snuff-coloured cloth, and his 
stockings of the same colour. By the blue riband alone could 
the young subject of this 'good sort of man' discern that he 
was in the presence of majesty. Little interest could be elicited 
in this brief interview, yet Horace thought it his painful duty, 
being also the son of a prime minister, to shed tears when, 
with the other scholars of Eton College, he walked in the pro- 
cession to the proclamation of George II. And no doubt he 
was one of very few personages in England whose eyes were 
moistened for that event. Nevertheless, there was something 
of bonhoimnic in the character of George I. that one misses in 
his successor. His love of punch, and liis habit of becoming 
a little tipsy over his private dinners with Sir Robert Walpole, 



268 Characteristic Anecdote of George I, 

were EngKsli as well as German traits, and were regarded al- 
most as condescensions ; and then he had a kind of slow wit, 
that was turned upon the venial officials whose perquisites were 
at their disgraceful height in his time. 

^ A strange country this/ said the monarch, in his most cla- 
morous German : ' one day, after I came to St. James's, I looked 
out of the window, and saw a park, with walks, laurels, &c. ; 
these they told me were mine. The next day Lord Chetwynd, 
the ranger of my park, sends me a brace of carp out of my 
canal ; I was told, thereupon, that I must give five guineas to 
Lord Chetwynd's porter for bringing me my ow7i fish, out of 
my ow7t canal, in my own park !' In spite of some agreeable 
qualities, George I. was, however, anything but a ' good sort 
of man.' It is difficult how to rank the two first Georges ; 
both were detestable as men, and scarcely tolerable as mon- 
archs. The foreign deeds of George I. were stained with the 
supposed murder of Count Konigsmark ; the English career of 
George II. was one of the coarsest profligacy. Their example 
was infamous. 

His father's only sister having become the second wife of 
Charles Lord Townshend, Horace was educated with his 
cousins ; and the tutor selected was Edward Weston, the son 
of Stephen, Bishop of Exeter ; this preceptor was afterwards 
engaged in a controversy with Dr. Warburton, concerning the 
* Naturalization of the Jews.' By that learned, haughty dis- 
putant, he is termed ^ a gazetteer by profession — by inclination 
a Methodist.' Such was the man who guided the dawning in- 
tellect of Horace Walpole. Under his care he remained until 
he went, in 1727, to Eton. But Walpole's was not merely a 
scholastic education : he was destined for the law- — and, on 
going up to Cambridge, was obliged to attend lectures on civil 
law. He went from Eton to King's College — where, he was, 
however, more disposed to what are termed accomplishments 
tlian to deep reading. At Cambridge he even studied Italian ; 
at home he learned to dance and fence ; and took lessons in 
drawing from Bernard Lens, drawing-master to the Duke of 
Cumberland and his sisters. It is not to be wondered at that 
he left Cambridge without taking a degree. 



Schoolboy Days. 269 

But fortune was lying, as it were, in wait for him ; and various 
sinecures had been reserved for the Minister's youngest son : 
first, he became Inspector of the Imports and Exports in the 
Customs ; but soon resigned that post to be Usher of the Ex- 
chequer. * And as soon,' he writes, ' as I became of age I took 
possession of two other Httle patent places in the Exchequer, 
called Comptroller of the Pipe, and Clerk, of the Estreats. 
They had been held for me by Mr. Fane.' 

Such was the mode in which the younger sons were then pro- 
vided for by a minister ; nor has the unworthy system died out 
in our time, although greatly modified. 

Horace was growing up meantime, not an awkward, but a 
somewhat insignificant youth, with a short, slender figure : 
which always retained a boyish appearance when seen from 
behind. His face was common-place, except when his really 
expressive eyes sparkled with intelligence, or melted into the 
sweetest expression of kindness. But his laugh was forced and 
uncouth : and even in his smile there was a hard, sarcastic ex- 
pression that made one regret that he smiled. 

He was now in possession of an income of ^^1,700 annually, 
and he looked naturally to the Continent, to which all young 
members of the aristocracy repaired, after the completion of 
their- collegiate life. 

He had been popular at Eton : he was also, it is said, both 
beloved and valued at Cambridge. In reference to his Etonian 
days he says, in one of his letters, ^ I can't say I am sorry I was 
never quite a schoolboy : an expedition against bargemen, or a 
match at cricket, may be very pretty things to recollect; but, 
thank my stars, I can remember things that are very near as 
pretty. The beginning of my Roman histoiy was spent in the 
asylum, or conversing in Egeria's hallowed grove ; not in thump- 
ing and pummelling King Amulius's herdsmen.''' 

' I remember,' he adds, ' when I was at Eton, and Mr. 
Bland had set me on an extraordinary task, I used sometimes 
to pique myself upon not getting it, because it was not imme- 
diately my school business. What ! learn more than I was ab- 

* Life by Warburton, p. 70. 



270 Boyish Friendships, 

solutely forced to learn ! I felt the weight of learning that; 
for I was a blockhead, and pushed above my parts i*^ 

Popular amongst his schoolfellows, Horace formed friend- 
ships at Eton which mainly influenced his after-life. Richard 
West, the son of West, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and the 
grandson, on his mother's side, of Bishop Burnet; together 
with a youth named Assheton — formed, with the poet Gray, 
and Horace himself, what the young wit termed the ^ Quad- 
ruple Alliance.' Then there was the triumvirate,' George 
Montagu, Charles Montagu, and Horace ; next came George 
Selwyn and Hanbury Williams ; lastly, a retired, studious youth, 
a sort of foil to all these gay, brilliant young wits — a certain 
William Cole, a lover of old books, and of quaint prints. And 
in all these boyish friendships, some of which were carried from 
Eton to Cambridge, may be traced the foundation of the 
Horace Walpole, of Strawberry Hill and of Berkeley Square. 
To Gray he owed his ambition to be learned, if possible — 
poetical, if nature had not forbidden ; to the Montagus, his 
dash and spirit ; to Sir Hanbury Williams, his turn for jeux 
d"* esprit, as a part of the completion of a fine gentleman's edu- 
cation ; to George Selwyn, his appreciation of what was then 
considered wit — but which we moderns are not worthy to ap- 
preciate. Lord Hertford and Henry Conway, Walpole's cousins, 
were also his schoolfellows ; and for them he evinced through- 
out his long life a warm regard. William Pitt, Lord Chatham 
— chiefly remembered at Eton for having been flogged for being 
out of bounds — was a contemporary, though not an intimate, 
of Horace Walpole's at Eton. 

His regard for Gray did him infinite credit : yet never were 
two men more dissimilar as they advanced in life. Gray had 
no aristocratic birth to boast ; and Horace dearly loved birth, 
refinement, position, all that comprises the cherished term 
^ aristocracy.' Thomas Gray, more illustrious for the little his 
fastidious judgment permitted him to give to the then critical 
world, than many have been in their productions of volumes, 
was born in Cornhill — his father being a worthy citizen. He 
was just one year older than Walpole, but an age his senior 

* Life of Warburton, p. 63. 



Companio7iship of Gray. 2Jl 

in gravity, precision, and in a stiff resolution to maintain his 
independence. He made one fatal step, fatal to his friendship 
for Horace, when he forfeited — by allowing Horace to take 
him and pay his expenses during a long continental tour — his 
independence. Gray had many points which made him vul- 
nerable to Walpole's shafts of ridicule ; and Horace had a host 
of faults which excited the stern condemnation^ of Gray. The 
author of the ' Elegy' — which Johnson has pronounced to be 
the noblest ode in our language — was one of the most learned 
men of his time, ' and was equally acquainted with the elegant 
and profound paths of science, and that not superficially, but 
thoroughly ; knowing in every branch of history, both natural 
and civil, as having read all the original historians of Eng- 
land, France, and Italy ; a great antiquarian, who made criti- 
cisms, metaphysics, morals, and politics a principal part of his 
plan of study — who was uncommonly fond of V03^ages and tra- 
vels of all sprts — and who had a fine taste in painting, prints, 
architecture, and gardening.' 

What a companion for a young man of taste and sympathy ! 
but the friends were far too clever long to agree. Gray was 
haughty, impatient, intolerant of the peculiarities of others, ac- 
cording to the author of ' Walpoliana :' doubtless he detected 
the vanity, the actual selfishness, the want of earnest feeling in 
Horace, which had all been kept down at school, where boys 
are far more unsparing Mentors than their betters. In vain 
did they travel eji prince, and all at Walpole's expense ; in vain 
did they visit courts, and receive affability from princes : in 
vain did he of Cornhill participate for a brief period in the at- 
tentions lavished on the son of a British Prime Minister : they 
quarrelled — and we almost reverence Gray for that result, more 
especially when we find the author of * Walpoliana' expressing 
his conviction that * had it not been for this idle indulgence of 
his hasty temper, Mr. Gray would immediately on his return 
home have received, as usual, a pension or office from Sir Ro- 
bert Walpole.' We are inclined to feel contempt for the anony- 
mous writer of that amusing little book. 

After a companionship of four years. Gray, nevertheless, 
returned to London. He had been educated wilh the expect- 



272 A Dreary Doom. 

ation of being a barrister ; but finding that fi.mds were wanting 
to pursue a legal education, he gave up a set of chambers in 
the Temple, which he had occupied previous to his travels, and 
retired to Cambridge. 

Henceforth what a singular contrast did the lives of these 
once fond friends present ! In the small, quaint rooms of 
Peter-House,*^ Gray consumed a dreary celibacy, consoled by 
the Muse alone, who — if other damsels found no charms in his 
somewhat piggish, wooden countenance, or in his manners, 
replete, it is said, with an unpleasant consciousness of superi- 
ority — never deserted him. His college existence, varied only 
by his being appointed Professor of Modern History, was, for a 
brief space, exchanged for an existence almost as studious in 
London. Between the years 1759 ^^^ 1762, he took lodgings, 
we find, in Southampton Row — a pleasant locality then, open- 
ing to the fields — in order to be near the British Museum, at 
that time just opened to the public. Here his intense studies 
were, it may be presumed, relieved by the lighter task of perus- 
ing the Harleian Manuscripts; and here he formed the 
acquaintance of Mason, a dull, affected poet, wht)se celebrity is 
greater as the friend and biographer of Gray, than even as the 
author of those verses on the death of Lady Coventry, in which 
there are, nevertheless, some beautiful lines. Gray died in 
college — a doom that, next to ending one's days in a jail or a 
convent, seems the dreariest. He died of the gout : a suitable, 
and, in that region and in those three-bottle days, almost an 
inevitable disease ; but there is no record of his having been 
intemperate. 

Whilst Gray was poring over dusty manuscripts, Horace was 
beginning that career of prosperity which was commenced by 
the keenest enjoyment of existence. He has left us, in his 
Letters, some brilliant passages, indicative of the delights of his 
boyhood and youth. Like him, we linger over a period still 
fresh, still hopeful, still generous in impulse — still strong in faith 
in the world's worth — ^before we hasten on to portray the man 
of the world, heartless, not wholly, perhaps, but wont to check 
all feeling till it was well-nigh quenched ; little minded ; bitter, 

Gray migrated to Pembroke in 1756. 



Walpoles Description of Youthful Delights. 2'ji 

if not spiteful ; with many acquaintances and scarce one friend — 
the Horace Walpole of Berkeley Square and Strawberry Hill. 

' Youthful passages of life are/ he says, ' the chippings of 
Pitt's diamond, set into little heart-rings with mottoes ; the 
stone itself more worth, the filings more gentle and agreeable. 
Alexander, at the head of the world, never tasted the true plea- 
sure that boys of his age have enjoyed at the head of a school. 
Little intrigues, little schemes and policies engage" their thoughts ; 
and at the same time that they are laying the foundation for 
their middle age of life, the mimic republic they live in, 
furnishes materials of conversation for their latter age ; and old 
men cannot be said to be children a second time with greater 
truth from any one cause, than their living over again their 
childhood in imagination.' 

Again : ^ Dear George, were not the playing-fields at Eton 
food for all manner of flights ? No old maid's gown, though it 
had been tormented into all the fashions from King James to 
King George, ever underwent so many transformations as these 
poor plains have in my idea. At first I was contented with 
tending a visioQary flock, and sighing some pastoral name to 
the echo of the cascade under the bridge. . . As I got further 
into Virgil and Clelia, I found myself transported from Arcadia 
to the garden of Italy ; and saw Windsor Castle in no other 
view than the Capitoli imrnohile saxum.^ 

Horace AValpole's humble friend Assheton was another of 
those Etonians who were plodding on to independence, whilst 
he, set fonvard by fortune and interest, was accomplishing 
reputation. Assheton was the son of a worthy man, who pre- 
sided over the Grammar School at Lancaster, upon a stipend 
of ;^32 a year. Assheton's mother had brought to her husband 
a small estate. This was sold to educate the ' boys :' they were 
both clever and deserving. One became the fellow of Trinity 
College ; the other, the friend of Horace, rose into notice as 
the tutor of the young Earl of Plymouth ; then became a D.D., 
and a fashionable preacher in London ; was elected preaclier 
at Lincoln's Inn ; attacked the Methodists ; and died, at fifty- 
three, at variance with Horace — this Assheton, whom once hij 
had loved so much. 

i8 



2/4 Anecdote of Pope and Frederic of Wales, 

Horace, on the other hand, after having seen during his 
travels all that was most exclusive, attractive, and lofty, both 
in art and nature, came home without bringing, he declares, 
* one word of French or Italian for common use.' He professed, 
indeed, to prefer England to all other countries. A country 
tour in England delighted him : the populousness, the ease in 
the people also, charmed him. ' Canterbury was a paradise to 
Modena, Reggio, or Parma.' He had, before he returned, 
perceived that nowhere except in England was there the dis- 
tinction of ' middling people ;' he now found that nowhere but 
in England were middling houses. ' How snug they are T ex- 
claims this scion of the exclusives. Then he runs on into 
an anecdote about Pope and Frederick, Prince of Wales. ' Mr. 
Pope,' said the prince, 'you don't love princes.' 'Sir, I beg 
your pardon.' 'Well, you don't love kings, then.' ' Sir, I own 
I like the lion better before his claws are grown.' The ' Horace 
Walpole ' began now to creep out : never was he really at home 
except in a court atmosphere. Still he assumed, even at ' 
twenty-four, to be the boy. 

' You won't find me,' he writes to Harry Conway, * much 
altered, I believe ; at least, outwardly. I am not grown a bit 
shorter or fatter, but am just the same long, lean creature as 
usual. Then I talk no French but to my footman ; nor Italian^ 
but to myself What inward alterations may have happened to 
me you will discover best; for you know 'tis said, one never 
knows that one's self I will answer, that that part of it that 
belongs to you has not suffered the least change — I took care of 
that. For virtu ^ I have a little to entertain you — it is my sole 
pleasure. I am neither young enough nor old enough to be 
in love.' 

Nevertheless, it peeps out soon after that the 'Pomfrets' 
are coming back. Horace had known them in Italy. The Earl 
and Countess and their daughters were just then the very pink 
of fashion ; and even the leaders of all that was exclusive in the 
court. Half in ridicule, half in earnest, are the remarks which, 
tliroughout all the career of Horace, incessantly occur. ' I am 
Tj either young enough nor old enough to be in love,' he says ; 
yet that he was in love with one of the lovely Fermors is tra- 



The Pomfrets. 275 

ditionary still in the family— -and that tradition pointed at Lady 
Juliana, the youngest, afterwards married to Mr. Penn. The 
Earl of Pomfret had been master of the horse to Queen 
Caroline : Lady Pomfret, lady of the bed-chamber. * My Earl,' 
as the countess styled him, was apparently a supine subject to 
. her ladyship's strong will and wrong-headed ability — which she, 
perhaps, inherited from her grandfather, Judg^ Jeffreys ; she 
being the daughter and heiress of that rash young Lord Jef- 
freys, who, in a spirit of braggadocia, stopped the funeral of 
Dryden on its way to Westminster, promising a more splendid 
procession than the poor, humble cortege — a boast which he 
never fulfilled. Lady Sophia Fermor, the eldest daughter, who 
aftenvards became the wife of Lord Carteret, resembled, in 
beauty, the famed Mistress Arabella Fermor, the heroine of the 

* Rape of the Lock.' Horace Walpole admired Lady Sophia — 
whom he christened Juno — intensely. Scarcely a letter drips 
from his pen — as a modern novelist used to express it*^ — with- 
out some touch of the Pomfrets. Thus to Sir Horace Mann, 
then a diplomatist at Florence : — 

* Lady Pomfret I saw last night. Lady Sophia has been ill 
with a cold ; her head is to be dressed French, and her body 
English, for which I am sony^ her figure is so fine in a robe. 
She is full as sorry as I am.' 

Again, at a ball at Sir Thomas Robinson's, where four-and- 
twenty couples danced country-dances, in two sets, twelve and 
twelve, * there was Lady Sophia, handsomer than ever, but a 
little out of humour at the scarcity of minuets ; however, as 
usual, dancing more than anybody, and, as usual too, she took 
out what men she liked, or thought the best dancers.' . . . 

* We danced ; for I countr}^-danced till four, then had tea and 
coffee, and came home.' Poor Horace ! Lady Sophia was not 
for a younger son, however gay, talented, or rich he mfght be. 

His pique and resentment towards her modier, who had higher 
views for her beautiful daughter, begin at this period to show 
themselves, and never died away. 

Lady Townshend was the wit who used to gratify Horace 

• The accomplished novelist, Mrs. Gore, famous for licr facility, tiscfl to say 
that a three-volume novel juot ' dripped from her pen.' 

18—2 



2/6 An Admirable Scene, 

with tales of her whom he hated — Henrietta-Louisa, Countess 
of Pomfret. 

^ Lady Townshend told me an admirable history : it is of 
our friend lu2idc^ Pomfret. Somebody that belonged to the Prince 
of Wales said, they were going to court; it was objected that 
they ought to say to Carlton House ; that the only court is 
where the king resides. Lady P., with her paltry air of signi- 
ficant learning and absurdity, said, "Oh, Lord ! is there no court 
in England but the king's ? Sure, there are many more ! 
There is the Court of Chancery, the Court of Exchequer, the 
Court of King's Bench, &c.'* Don't you love her? Lord Lin- 
coln does her daughter — Lady Sophia Fermor. He is come 
over, and met me and her the other night; he turned pale, 
spoke to her several times in the evening, but not long, and 
sighed to me at going away. He came over all alone ; and not 
only his Uncle Duke (the Duke of Newcastle) but even Majesty 
is fallen in love with him. He talked to the king at his levee, 
without being spoken to. That was always thought high trea- 
son ; but I don't know how the gruff gentleman liked it. And 
then he had been told that Lord Lincoln designed to have made 
the campaign, if we had gone to war ; in short, he says Lord 
Lincoln is the handsomest man in England.' 

Horace was not, therefore, the only victim to a mother's am- 
bition : there is something touching in the interest he from time . 
to time evinces in poor Lord Lincoln's hopeless love. On 
another occasion, a second ball of Sir Thomas Robinson's, 
Lord Lincoln, out of prudence, dances with Lady Caroline 
Fitzroy, Mr. Conway taking Lady Sophia Fermor. ' The two 
couple were just admirably mismatched, as everybody soon per- 
ceived, by the attentions of each man to the woman he did not 
dance with, and the emulation of either lady ; it was an admir- 
able scene.' 

All, however, was not country dancing : the young man, Hoo 
old and too young to be in love,' was to make his way as a wit. 
He did so, in the approved way in that day of irreligion, in a 
political squib. On July 14th, 1742, he writes in his Notes, ' I 
wrott Xho. ^^ Lessons for the Day /^ the "Lessons for the day" 
being the first and second chapters of the " Book of Prefer- 



Political Sqtcibs, 2^J 

ment." ' Horace was proud of this brochure^ for he says it got 
about surreptitiously, and was ' the original of many things of 
that sort' Various y'^/^.r ^Vj>^r// of a similar sort followed. A 
* Sermon on Painting/ which was preached before Sir Robert 
Walpole, in the gallery at Houghton, by his chaplain ; ' Pata- 
pan, or the Little White Dog,' imitated from La Fontaine. No. 
38 of the ' Old England Journal,' intended ta ridicule Lord 
Bath ; and then, in a magazine, was printed his ^ Scheme for 
a Tax on Message Cards and Notes.' Next the ' Beauties,' 
which was also handed about, and got into print. So that 
without the vulgarity of publishing, the reputation of the dandy 
writer was soon noised about. His religious tenets may or may 
not have been sound ; but at all events the tone of his mind 
assumed at this time a very different character to that reverent 
strain in which, when a youth at college, he had apostrophized 
those who bowed their heads beneath the vaulted roof of King's 
College, in his eulogium in the character of Henry VI. 

' Ascend the temple, join the vocal choir, 
Let harmony your raptured souls inspire. 
Hark how the tuneful, solemn organs blow, 
Awfully strong, elaborately slow ; 
Now to yon empyrean seats above 
Raise meditation on the wings of love. 
Now falling, sinking, dying to the moan 
Once warbled sad by Jesse's contrite son ; 
Breathe in each note a conscience through the sense, 
And call forth tears from soft-eyed Penitence.' 

In the midst of all his gaieties, his successes, and perhaps 
his hopes, a cloud hovered over the destinies of his father. The 
opposition, Horace saw, in 1741, wished to ruin his father * by 
ruining his constitution.' They wished to continue their debates 
on Saturdays, Sir Robert's only day of rest, when he used to 
rush to Richmond New Park, there to amuse himself with a 
favourite pack of beagles. Notwithstanding the minister's in- 
difference to this his youngest son, Horace felt bitterly what he 
considered a persecution against one of the most corrupt of 
modem statesmen. 

' Trust me, if we fall, all the grandeur, all the envied gran- 
deur of our house, will not cost me a sigh : it has given me no 
pleasure while we have it, and will give mc no pain when I part 



2/8 Sir Robert's Retirement from Oiflce, 

with it. My liberty, my ease, and choice of my own friends 
and company, will sufficiently counterbalance the crowds of 
Downing Street. I am so sick of it all, that if we are victori- 
ous or not, I propose leaving England in the spring.' 

The struggle was not destined to last long. Sir Robert was 
forced to give up the contest and be shelved with a peerage. 
In 1742, he was created Earl of Orford, and resigned. The 
wonder is that, with a mortal internal disease to contend with, 
he should have faced his foes so long. Verses ascribed to Lord 
Hervey ended, as did all the squibs of the day, with a fling at 
that ^ rogue Walpole.' 

■ * For though you have made that rogue Walpole retire, 
You are out of the frying-pan into the fire : 
But since to the Protestant Hne I'm a friend, 
I tremble to think how these changes may end.' 

Horace, notwithstanding an affected indifference, felt his 
father's downfall poignantly. He went, indeed, to court, in 
spite of a cold, taken in an unaired house ; for the prime mi- 
nister now quitted Downing Street for Arlington Street. The 
court was crowded, he found, with old ladies, the wives of 
patriots who had not been there for ^ these twenty years,' and 
who appeared in the accoutrements that were in vogue in Queen 
Anne's time. ^Then,' he writes, Hhe joy and awkward jollity 
of them is inexpressible ! They titter, and, wherever you 
meet them, are always looking at their watches an hour before 
the time. I met several on the birthday (for I did not arrive 
time enough to make clothes), and they were dressed in all the 
colours of the rainbow. They seem to have said to themselves, 
twenty years ago, " Well, if ever I do go to court again, I will 
have a pink and silver, or a blue and silver ;" and they keep 
their resolutions.' 

Another characteristic anecdote betrays his ill-suppressed 
vexation : — 

* I laughed at myself prodigiously the other day for a piece 
of absence. I was writing, on the king's birthday, and being 
disturbed with the mob in the street, I rang for the porter and 
with an air of grandeur, as if I was still at Downing Street, 
cried, " Pray send away those marrow-bones and cleavers ." 



The Splendid Mansion at Houghton. 279 

The poor fellow, with the most mortified air in the world, re- 
plied, " Sir, they are not at our door, but over the way, at my 
Lord Carteret's."—" Oh !" said I, " then let them alone ; may 
be, he does not dislike the noise !" I pity the poor porter, who 
Bees all his old customers going over the way too.' 

The retirement of Sir Robert from office had an important 
effect on the tastes and future life of his soh- Horace. The 
minister had been occupying his later years in pulling down 
his old ancestral house at Houghton, and in building an enor- 
mous mansion, which has since his time been, in its turn, par- 
tially demolished. When Harley, Earl of Oxford, was known 
to be erecting a great house for himself. Sir Robert had re- 
marked that a minister who did so committed a great impru- 
dence. When Houghton was begun, Sir Hynde Aston reminded 
Sir Robert of this speech. ' You ought to have recalled it to 
me before,' was the reply; 'for before I began building, it 
might have been of use to me.' 

This famous memorial of Walpolean greatness, this splendid 
folly, constructed, it is generally supposed, on public money, 
was inhabited by Sir Robert only ten days in summer, and 
twenty days in winter ; in the autumn, during the shooting sea- 
son, two months. It became almost an eyesore to the quiet 
gentry, who viewed the palace with a feeling of their own in- 
feriority. People as good as the Walpoles lived in their gable- 
ended, moderate-sized mansions ; and who was Sir Robert, to 
set them at so immense a distance? 

To the vulgar comprehension of the Premier, Houghton, 
gigantic in its proportions, had its purposes. He there assem- 
bled his supporters ; there, for a short time, he entertained his 
constituents and coadjutors with a magnificent, jovial hospi- 
tality, of which he, with his gay spirits, his humourous, indeli- 
cate jokes, and his unbounded good-nature, was the very soul. 
Free conversation, hard-drinking, were the features of every 
day's feast. Pope thus describes him : — 

* Seen him, I have, but in his happier hour, 
Of social pleasure, ill cxchan.c^ed for power ; 
Seen him uncumbcred with the venal tril^e, ^ 
Smile without art, and win without a bribe.' 

Amid the coarse Ustc one gentle refinement existed : this 



28o Sir Robert's Love of Gardening, 

was the love of gardening, both in its smaller compass and in 
its nobler. sense of landscape gardening. "This place/ Sir 
Robert, in 1743, wrote to General Churchill, from Houghton, 
* affords no news, no subject of entertainment or amusement ; 
for fine men of wit and pleasure about town understand neither 
the language and taste, nor the pleasure of the inanimate world. 
My flatterers here are all mutes : the oaks, the beeches, the 
chestnuts, seem to contend which best shall please the lord of 
the manor. They cannot deceive ; they will not lie. I in sin- 
cerity admire them, and have as many beauties about me as fill 
up all my hours of dangling, and no disgrace attending me, 
from sixty-seven years of age. Within doors we come a little 
nearer to real life, and admire, upon the almost speaking can- 
vas, all the airs and graces the proudest ladies can boast' 

In these pursuits Horace cordially shared. Through his 
agency, Horace Mann, still in the diplomatic service, at Flo- 
rence, selected and purchased works of art, which, were sent 
either to Arlington Street, or to form the famous Houghton 
Collection, to which Horace so often refers in that delightful 
work, his ^ Anecdotes of Painting.' 

Amongst the embellishments of Houghton, the gardens were 
the most expensive. 

'Sir Robert has pleased himself,' Pulteney, Earl of Bath, 
wrote, 'with erecting palaces and extending parks, planting 
gardens in places to which the very earth was to be transported 
in carriages, and embracing cascades and fountains whose water 
was only to be obtained by aqueducts and machines, and imi- 
tating the extravagance of Oriental monarchs, at the expense 
of a free people whom he has at once impoverished and be- 
trayed.' 

The ex-minister went to a great expense in the cultivation 
of plants, bought Uvedale's ' Hortus Siccus j' and received 
from Bradley, the Professor of Botany at Cambridge, the tri- 
bute of a dedication, in which it was said that ' Sir Robert 
had purchased one of the finest collections of plants in the 
kingdom.' 

What was more to his honour still, was Sir Robert's preser- 
vation of St. James's Park for the people. Fond of outdoor 



What we Ozve to the ' Grandes Tours' 281 

amusements himself, the Premier heard, with dismay, a pro- 
posal on the part of Queen Caroline to convert that ancient 
park into a palace garden. 'She asked my father,' Horace 
Walpole relates, ' what the alteration might possibly cost ?' — 
' Only three crowns^ was the civil, witty, candid answer. The 
queen was wise enough to take the hint. It is possible she 
meant to convert the park into gardens .tl^at should be open 
to the public as at Berlin, Mannheim, and even the Tuileries. 
Still it would not have been ours. 

Horace Walpole owed, perhaps, his love of architecture and 
his taste for gardening, partly to the early companionship of 
Gray, who dehghted in those pursuits. Walpole's estimation 
of pictures, medals, and statues, was however the fruit of a long 
residence abroad. We are apt to rail at continental nations ; 
yet had it not been for the occasional intercourse with foreign 
nations, art Avould have altogether died out among us. To the 
* Grandes Tours,' performed as a matter of course by our young 
nobility in the most impressionable period of their lives we owe 
most of our noble private collections. Charles I. and Bucking- 
ham, renewed, in their travels in Spain, the efforts previously 
made by Lord Arundel and Lord Pembroke, to embellish their 
country seats. Then came the Rebellion ; and like a mighty 
rushing river, made a chasm in which much perished. Art lan- 
guished in the reign of the second Charles, excepting in what 
related to portrait painting. Evelyn stood almost alone in his 
then secluded and lovely retirement at Wotton ; apart in his 
undying exertions still to arrest the Muses ere they quitted for 
ever English shores. Then came the deadly frost of William's 
icy influence. The reign of Anne was conspicuous more for 
letters than for art : architecture, more especially, was vulgar- 
ized under Vanbrugh. George I. had no conception of any- 
thing abstract : taste, erudition, science, art, were like a dead 
language to his common sense, his vulgar profligacy, and his 
personal predilections. Neither George H. nor his queen had 
an iota of taste, either in language, conduct, literature, or art. 
To be vulgar, was haut-ton ; to be refined, to have pursuits that 
took one from low party gossip, or heterodox disquisitions upon 
party, was esteemed odd : everything original was cramped ; 



282 George Vertiie, 

everything imaginative was sneered at ; the enthusiasm that is 
elevated by religion was unphilosophic ; the poetry that is 
breathed out from the works of genius was not comprehended. 

It was at Houghton, under the roof of that monster palace, 
that Horace Walpole indulged that tastes for pictures which 
he had acquired in Italy. His chief coadjutor, however, as 
far as the antiquities of painting are concerned, was George 
Vertue, the eminent engraver. Vertue was a man of modest 
merit, and was educated merely as an engraver ; but, conscious 
of talent, studied drawing, which he afterwards applied to en- 
graving. He was patronised both by the vain Godfrey Kneller 
and by the intellectual Lord Somers : yet his works have more 
fidelity than elegance, and betray in eveiy line the antiquary 
rather than the genius. Vertue was known to be a first-rate 
authority as to the history of a painter ; he was admitted and 
welcomed into every great country house in England ; he lived 
in an atmosphere of vertu; every line a dilettante collector 
wrote, every word he uttered, was minuted down by him j he 
visited every collection of rarities ; he copied every paper he 
could find relative to art ; registers of wills, and registers of 
parishes, for births and deaths were his delight ; sales his re- 
creation. He was the ^ Old Mortality' of pictures in this 
country. No wonder that his compilations were barely con- 
tained in forty volumes, which he left in manuscript. Human 
nature has singular varieties : here was a man who expended 
his very existence in gathering up the works of others, and died 
without giving to the world one of his own. But Horace Wal- 
pole has done him justice. After Vertue's death he bought his 
manuscripts from his widow. In one of his pocket-books was 
contained the whole history of this man of one idea : Vertue 
began his collection in 17 13, and worked at it until his death 
in 1757, forty-four years. 

He died in the belief that he should one day publish an 
unique work on painting and painters : such was the aim of his 
existence, and his study must have been even more curious 
than the wonderfully crammed, small house at Islington, where 
William Upcott, the ^ Old Mortality' in his line, who saved 
from the housejnaid's fire-lighting designs the MSS. of Evelyn's 



Me7i of One Idea, 2S3 

Life and Letters, which he found tossing about in the old gal- 
lery at Wotton, near Dorking, passed his days. Like Upcott, 
Hke Palissy, Vertue lived and died under the influence of one 
isolated aim, effort, and hope. 

In these men, the cherished and amiable monomania of 
gifted minds was realized. Upcott had every possible autograph 
from every known hand in his collection : Palissy succeeded in 
making glazed china ; but Vertue left hi^^ore to the hands of 
others to work; out into shape, and the man who moulded his 
crude materials was Horace Walpole, and Vertue's forty volumes 
were shaped into a readable work, as curious and accurate in 
facts as it is flippant and prejudiced in style and opinions. 

Walpole's ^Anecdotes of Painting' are the foundation of all 
our small amount of knowledge as to what England has done 
formerly to encourage art. 

One may fancy the modest, ingenious George Vertue arrang- 
ing first, and then making a catalogue of the Houghton Gallery ; 
Horace, a boy still, in looks, — with a somewhat chubby face, 
admiring and following : Sir Robert, in a cocked hat, edged 
with silver lace, a curled short wig, a loose coat, also edged 
with silver lace, and with a half humorous expression on his 
vulgar countenance, watching them at intervals, as they paraded 
through the hall, a large square space, adorned with bas-reliefs 
and busts, and containing a bronze copy of the Laocoon, for 
which Sir Robert (or rather we English) paid a thousand pounds ; 
or they might be seen hopping speedily through the ground- 
floor apartments where there could be little to arrest the foot- 
steps of the mediseval-minded Vertue. Who but a courtier 
could give one glance at a portrait of George L, though by 
Kneller? Who that was a courtier in that house would pause 
to look at the resemblance, also by Kneller, of the short-lived, 
ill-used Catherine Shorter, the Premier's first wife — even though 
he still endured it in his bed-room ? a mute reproach for his 
neglect and misconduct. So let us hasten to the yellow dining- 
room where presently we may admire the works of Titian, 
Guido, Vandervverf, and last, not least, eleven portraits by Van- 
dyck, of the Wharton family, which Sir Robert bought at the 
sale of the spendthrift Duke of Wharton, 



284 The Noble Picture Gallery at Houghton, 

Then let us glance at the saloon, famed for the four large" 
* Market Pieces/ as they were called, by Rubens and Snyders : 
let us lounge mto what were called the Carlo Maratti and the 
Vandyck rooms ; step we also into the green velvet bed-cham- 
ber, the tapestry- room, the worked bed-chamber; then comes 
another dining-room : in short, we are lost in wonder at this 
noble collection, which cost ^^40,000. 

Many of the pictures were selected and bargained for by 
Vertue, who, in Flanders, purchased the Market Pieces referred 
to, for ;^428; but did not secure the ^Fish Market,' and the 
'Meat Market,' by the same painter. In addition to the pic- 
tures, the stateliness and beauty of the rooms were enhanced 
by rich furniture, carving, gilding, and all the subsidiary arts 
which our grandfathers loved,#to add to high merit in design or 
colouring. Besides his purchases. Sir Robert received presents 
of pictures from friends, and expectant courtiers ; and the gal- 
lery at Houghton contained at last 222 pictures. To our 
sorrow now, to our disgrace then, this splendid collection was 
suffered to go out of the country : Catherine, empress of Russia, 
bought it for ;^4o,ooo, and it adorns the Hermitage Palace of 
St. Petersburgh. 

After Sir Robert's retirement from power, the good qualities 
which he undoubtedly possessed, seemed to re-appear as soon 
as the pressure of party feeling was withdrawn. He was fast 
declining in health when the insurrection of 1745 was impend- 
ing. He had warned the country of its danger in his last * 
speech, one of the finest ever made in the House of Lords : 
after that effort his voice was heard no more. The gallant, un- 
fortunate Charles Edward was then at Paris, and that scope of 
old experience 

' which doth attain 

To somewhat of prophetic strain,' 

showed the ex-minister of Great Britain that an invasion was at 
hand. It was on this occasion that Frederick, Prince of Wales, 
took Sir Robert, then Lord Orford, by the hand, and thanked 
him for his zeal in the cause of the royal family. Walpole re- 
turned to Norfolk, but was summoned again to London to afford 
the ministry the benefit of his counsels. Death, however, closed 



Sir Roherfs Death. 285 

his prosperous, but laborious life. He suffered agonies from 
the stone ; large doses of opium kept him in a state of stupor, 
and alone gave him ease ; but his strength failed, and he was 
warned to prepare himself for his decease. He bore the an- 
nouncement with great fortitude, and took leave of his children 
in perfect resignation to his doom. He died on the 28th of 
March, 1745. 

Horace Walpole — whatsoever doubt^may rest on the fact of 
his being Lord Orford's son or not — writes feelingly and natu- 
rally upon this event, and its forerunner, the agonies of disease. 
He seems, from the following passages in his letters to Sir 
Horace Mann, to have devoted himself incessantly to the 
patient invalid : on his father having rallied, he thus expresses 
himself : — 

' You have heard from your Drother the reason of my not 
having written to you so long. I have been out but twice since 
my father fell into this illness, which is now near a month, and 
all that time either continually in his room, or obliged to see 
multitudes of people ; for it is wonderful how everybody of all 
kinds has affected to express their concern for him ! He has 
been out of danger this week ; but I can't say he mended at 
all perceptibly till these last three days. His spirits are amazing, 
a!Md his constitution more, for Dr. Hulse said honestly from the 
"first, that if he recovered it would be from his own strength, 
not from their art. How much more,' he adds, mournfully, ' he 
will ever recover, one scarce dare hope about ; for us, he is 
greatly recovered ; for himself — ' He then breaks off. 

A month after we find- him thus referring to the parent still 
throbbing in mortal agony on the death-bed, with no chance of 
amendment : — 

^ How dismal a prospect for him, with the possession of the 
greatest understanding in the world, not the least impaired, to 
lie without any use for it ! for to keep him from pains and rest- 
lessness, he takes so much opiate, that he is scarce awake four 
hours of the four-and-twenty ; but I will say no more of this.' 

On tlie 29th of March, he again wrote to his friend in the 
following terms : — 

* I begged your brothers to tell you what it is imj)ossiblc for 



286 The Granville Faction, 

me to tell you. You share in our common loss ! Don't expect 
me to enter at all upon the subject. After the melancholy two 
months that I have passed, and in my situation, you will not 
wonder I shun a conversation which could not be bounded by 
a letter, a letter that would grow into a panegyric or a piece of 
a moral ; improper for me to write upon, and too distressful for 
us both ! a death is only to be felt, never to be talked upon by 
those it touches.' 

Nevertheless, the world soon had Horace Walpole for her 
own again ; during Lord Orford's last illness, George II. thought' 
of him, it seems, even though the ' Granvilles ' were the only 
people tolerated at court. That famous clique comprised the 
secretly adored of Horace (Lady Granville now). Lady Sophia 
Termor. 

^The Granville faction,' Horace wrote, before his father's 
4eath, ^ are still the constant and only countenanced people at 
court. Lord Winchelsea, one of the disgraced, played at court 
at Twelfth-night, and won ; the king asked him next morning 
how much he had for his own share. He replied, " Sir, about 
a quarter's salary." I liked the spirit, and was talking to him 
of it the next night at Lord Granville's. " Why yes," said he, 
" I think it showed familiarity at least : tell it your father, I 
don't think he will dislike it." ' 

The most trifling incidents divided the world of fashion and 
produced the bitterest rancour. Indeed, nothing could exceed 
the frivolity of the great, except their impertinence. For want 
of better amusements, it had become the fashion to make 
conundrums, and to have printed books full of them, which 
were produced at parties. But these were peaceful diversions. 
The following anecdote is worthy of the times of George IL 
and of Frederick of Wales : — 

^ There is a very good quarrel,' Horace writes, ' on foot, be- 
tween two duchesses : she of Queensberry sent to invite Lady 
Emily Lenox to a ball : her grace of Richmond, who is wonder- 
fully cautious since Lady Caroline's elopement (with Mr. Fox)^ - 
sent word " she could not determine." The other sent again 
the same night : the same answer. The Queensberry then sent 
word, that she had made up her company, and desired to be 



A Very Good Quarrel, 287 

excused from having Lady Emily's ; but at the bottom of the 
card ^vrote, " Too great trust." There is no declaration of war 
come out from the other duchess : but I believe it will be made 
a national quarrel of the whole illegitimate royal famil)^* 

Her Grace of Queensberr}^, Prior's ' Kitty, beautiful and 
young/ lorded it, with a tyrannical hand, over the court. Her 
famed loveliness was, it is true, at this time on the wane. 
Her portrait delineating her in her bibu and tucker, with her 
head rolled back underneath a sort of half cap, half veil, shows 
how intellectual was the face to which such incense w^as paid 
for years. Her forehead and eyebrows are beautiful : her eyes 
soft, though lively in expression : her features refined. She 
was as whimsical in her attire as in her character. When, how- 
ever, she chose to appear as the grande daine^ no one could cope 
with her. Mrs. Delany describes her at the Birth-day, — her 
dress of white satin, embroidered with vine leaves, convolvu- 
luses, rose-buds, shaded after nature ; but she, says her friend, 
*was so far beyond the master-//>^(? of art that one could hardly 
think of her clothes — allowing for her age I never saw so 
beautiful a creature^ 

Meantime, Houghton was shut up : for its ow^ner died 
^50,000 in debt, and the elder brother of Horace, the second 
Lord Orford, proposed, on entering it again, after keeping it 
closed for some time, to enter upon ^ new, and then very un- 
known economy, for which there was great need :' thus Horace 
refers to the changes. 

It was in the South Sea scheme that Sir Robert Walpole had 
realized a large sum of money, by selling out at the right mo- 
ment. In doing so he had gained 1000 per cent. But he left 
little to his family, and at his death, Horace received a legacy 
only of ;^5,ooo, and a thousand pounds yearly, which he was 
to draw (for doing nothing) from the collector's place in the 
Custom House ; the surplus to be divided between his brother 
Edward and himself : this provision was afterwards enhanced 
by some moViey which came to Horace and his brothers from 
his uncle Captain Shortcr's property ; but Horace was not at 
this period a rich man, and perhaps his not marrying was owing 
to his dislike of fortune-hunting, or to \\\^ dread of refusal. 



288 Twickenham, 

Two years after his father's death, he took a small house at 
Twickenham: the property cost him nearly ;^ 14,000; in the 
deeds he found that it was called Strawberry Hill. He soon 
commenced making considerable additions to the house — 
which became a sort of raree-show in the latter part of the last, 
and until a late period in this, century. 

Twickenham — so called, according to the antiquary Norden, 
because the Thames, as it flows near it, seems from the islands 
to be divided into two rivers, — had long been celebrated for its 
gardens, when Horace Walpole, the generalissimo of all 
bachelors, took Strawberry Hill. ^Twicknam is as much as 
Twynam,' declares Norden, ' a place scytuate between two 
rivers.' So fertile a ^ locality could not be neglected by the 
monks of old, the great gardeners and tillers of land in ancient 
days ; and the Manor of Twickenham was consequently given 
to the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, by King Edred, 
in 49 1 ; who piously inserted his anathema against any person 
— ^whatever their rank, sex, or order — who should infringe the 
rights of these holy men. ^ May their memory,' the king 
decreed, with a force worthy of the excommunicator-wholesale, 
Pius IX., ' be blotted out of the Book of Life ; may their 
strength continually waste away, and be there no restorative to 
repair it !' nevertheless, there were in the time of Lysons, a 
hundred and fifty acres of fruit-gardens at Twickenham : the soil 
being a sandy loam, raspberries grew plentifully. Even so early 
as Queen EHzabeth's days, Bishop Corbet's father had a nursery 
garden at Twickenham, — so that King Edred's curse seems to 
have fallen as powerlessly as it may be hoped all subsequent 
maledictions may do. 

In 1698, one of the Earl of Bradford's coachmen built a 
small house on a piece of ground, called in old works, Straw- 
berry-Hill-Shot ; lodgings were here let, and Colley Cibber be- 
came one of the occupants of the place, and here wrote his 
Comedy called ' Refusal ; or the Ladies' Philosophy.' The 
spot was so greatly admired that Talbot, Bishop of Durham, 
lived eight years in it, and the Marquis of Carnarvon succeeded 
him as a tenant : next came Mrs. Chenevix, a famous toy- 
woman. She was probably a French woman, for Father 



c 




STKAWBEEEY HILL FROM THE THAMES. 



See p. 289 



Strawbei'ry Hill, 289 

Courayer — he who vainly endeavoured to effect an union be- 
tween the Enghsh and the GalUcan churches — lodged here 
some time. Horace Walpole bought up Mrs. Chenevix's lease, 
and afterwards the fee-simple ; and henceforth became the 
busiest, if not the happiest, man in a small way in existence. 

We now despise the poor, over-ornate miniature Gothic style 
of Strawberry Hill ; we do not consider with what infinite pains 
the structure was enlarged into its final ^nd well-known form. 
In the first place, Horace made a tour to collect models from 
the chief cathedral cities in England ; but the building required 
twenty-three years to complete it. It was begun in 1753, ^^^ 
finished in 1776. Strawberry Hill had one merit, everything 
was in keeping : the internal decorations, the screens, the 
niches, the chimney-pieces, the book-shelves, w^ere all Gothic ; 
and most of these were designed by Horace himself ; and, in- 
deed, the description of Strawberry Hill is too closely connected 
with the annals of his life to be dissevered from his biography. 
Here he gathered up his mental forces to support and amuse 
himself during a long life, sometimes darkened by spleen, but 
rarely by solitude ; for Horace, with much isolation of the heart, 
was, to the world, a social being. 

What scandal, what trifles, what important events, what little- 
ness of mind, yet what stretch of intellect were henceforth 
issued by the recluse of Strawberry, as he plumed himself on 
being styled, from that library of ' Strawberry !' Let us picture 
to ourselves the place, the persons — put on, if we can, the 
sentiments and habits of the retreat ; look through its loop- 
holes, not only on the wide world beyond, but into the small 
world within ; and face the fine gentleman author in every 
period of his varied life. 

' The Strawberry Gazette,' Horace once wi'ote to a fine and 
titled lady, ^ is very barren of weeds.' Such, however, was 
rarely the case. Peers, and still better, peeresses, — politicians, 
actors, actresses, — the poor poet who knew not where to dine, 
the Maecenas who was ' fed with dedications' — the belle of the 
season, the demirep of many, the antiquary, and the dilettanti, 
— painters, sculptors, engravers, all brought news to the 'Straw- 
berry Gazette;' and incense, sometimes wrung from aching 

19 



290 The RecliLse of Strawberry,. 

hearts, to the fastidious wit who professed to be a judge of all 
material and immaterial things — from a burlesque to an Essay 
on history or Philosophy — from the construction of Mrs. Che- 
nevix's last new toy to the mechanism of a clock made in the 
sixteenth century, was lavished there. 

Suppose that it is noon-day : Horace is showing a party of 
guests from London over Strawberry : — enter we with him, and 
let us stand in the great parlour before a portrait by Wright of 
the Minister to whom all courts bowed. ' That is my father, 
Sir Robert, in profile,' and a vulgar face in profile is always seen; 
at its vulgarestj and the fiex-retrousse, the coarse mouth, the 
double chin, are' most forcibly exhibited in this limning by 
Wright ; who did not, like Reynolds, or like Lawrence, cast a 
7iuance of gentility over every subject of his pencil. Horace — • 
can we not hear him in imagination ? — ^is telling his friends how 
Sir Robert used to celebrate the day on which he sent in his 
resignation, as a fete ; then he would point out to his visitors a 
Conversation-piece, one of Reynolds's earliest efforts in small 
life, representing the second Earl of Edgecumbe, Selwyn, and 
Williams — all wits and beaux, and habitues of Strawberry. 
Colley Gibber, however, was put in cold marble in the ante- 
room j a respect very Horatian^ for no man knew better how 
to rank his friends than the recluse of S trawberry. He hurries 
the lingering guests through the little parlour, the chimneypiece 
of which was copied from the tomb of Ruthall, Bishop of Dur- 
ham, in Westminster Abbey. Yet how he pauses complacently 
to enumerate what has been done for him by titled belles : how 
these dogs, modelled in terra-cotta, are the production of Anne 
Damer; a water-colour drawing by Agnes Berry; a landscape 
with gipsies by Lady Di Beauclerk ; — all platonically devoted 
to our Horace ; but he dwells long, and his bright eyes are 
lighted up as he pauses before a case, looking as if it contained 
only a few apparently faded, of no-one-knows-who (or by whom) 
miniatures ; this is a collection of Peter Oliver's best works — 
portraits of the Digby family. 

How sadly, in referring to these invaluable pictures, does 
one's mind revert to the day when, before the hammer of 
Robins had resounded in these rooms — before his transcendent 



Saa^ilege. 291 

eloquence had been heard at Strawberry — Agnes Strickland, 
followed by all eyes, pondered over that group of portraits : 
how, as she slowly withdrew, we of the commonalty scarce 
worthy to look, gathered around the spot again, and wondered 
at the perfect life, the perfect colouring, proportion, and keep- 
ing of those tiny vestiges of a bygone generation ! 

Then Horace — we fear it was not till his prime was past, 
and a touch of gout crippled his once active limbs — points to 
a picture of Rose, the gardener (well named), presenting 
Charles II. with a pine-apple. Some may murmur a doubt 
whether pine-apples were cultivated in cold Britain so long since. 
But Horace enforces the fact ; ^ the likeness of the king,' quoth 
he, ^is too marked, and his features are too well known to 
doubt the fact;' and then he tells ^how he had received a pre- 
sent the last Sunday of fruit — and from whom.' 

They pause next on Sir Peter Lely's portrait of Cowley — 
next on Hogarth's Sarah Malcolm, the murderess of her mis- 
tress ; then — and doubtless, the spinster ladies are in fault here 
for the delay, — on Mrs. Damer's model of two kittens, pets, 
though, of Horace Walpole's — for he who loved few human 
belongs was, after the fashion of bachelors, fond of cats. 

They ascend the staircase : the domestic adornments merge 
into the historic. We have Francis I. — not himself, but his 
armour : the chimneypiece, too, is a copy from the tomb-works 
of John, Earl of Cornwall, in Westminster Abbey ; the stone- 
work from that of Thomas, Duke of Clarence, at Canterbury. 

Stay awhile : we have not done with sacrilege yet ; worse 
things are to be told, and we walk with consciences not un- 
scathed into the Library, disapproving in secret but flattering 
vocally. Here the very spirit of Horace seemed to those who 
visited Strawberry before its fall to breathe in every corner. 
Alas ! when we beheld that library, it was half filled with chests 
containing the celebrated MSS. of his letters ; which were 
bought by that enterprising publisher of learned name, Richard 
Bentley, and which have since had adequate justice done them 
by first-rate editors. There they were : the ' Strawberry Gazette' 
in full ; — one glanced merely at the yellow paper, and clear, de- 
cisive hand, and then turned to see what objects he, who loved 

19 — 2 



292 



Mrs, Darner s Models. 



his books so well, collected for his especial gratification. Mrs. 
Damer again ! how proud he was of her genius — her beauty, 
her cousinly love for himself; the wise way in which she bound 
up the wounds of her breaking heart when her profligate hus- 
band shot himself, by taking to occupation — perhaps, too, by 
liking cousin Horace indifferently well. He put her models for- 
ward in every place. Here was her Osprey Eagle in terra-cotta, 
a masterly production ; there a couvre-fire, or cur-few, imitated 
and modelled by her. Then the marriage of Henry VI. figures, 
on the wall : near the fire is a screen of the first tapestry ever 
made in England, representing a map of Surrey and Middlesex ; 
a notion of utility combined with ornament, which we see still 
exhibited in the Sampler in old-fashioned, middle-class houses ; 
that poor posthumous, base-bom child of the tapestry, almost 
defunct itself; and a veritable piece of antiquity. 

Still more remarkable in this room was a quaint-faced clock, 
silver gilt, given by Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn ; which per- 
chance, after marking the moments of her festive life, struck 
unfeelingly the hour of her doom. 

But the company are hurrying into a little ante-room, the 
ceiling of which is studded with stars in mosaic ; it is therefore 
called jocularly, the ' Star Chamber;' and here stands a cast of 
the famous bust of Henry VII., by Torregiano, intended for 
the tomb of that sad-faced, long-visaged monarch, who always 
looks as if royalty had disagreed with him. 

Next we enter the Holbein Chamber. Horace hated bishops 
and archbishops, and all the hierarchy ; yet here again we be- 
hold another prelatical chimneypiece — a frieze taken from the 
tomb of Archbishop Warham, at Canterbury. And here, in 
addition to Holbein's picture of Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suf- 
folk, and of her third husband Adrian Stokes, are Vertue's 
copies of Holbein, drawings of that great master's pictures in 
Buckingham House : enough — let us hasten into the Long 
Gallery. Those who remember Sir Samuel Merrick and his 
Gallery at Goodrich Court will have traced in his curious, some- 
what gew-gaw collections of armour, antiquities, faded portraits, 
and mock horses, much of the taste and turn of mind that ex- 
isted in Horace Walpole. 



The Long Gallery at Strawberry. 293 

The gallery, which all who recollect the sale at Strawberry 
Hill must remember with peculiar interest, sounded well on 
paper. It was 56 feet long, 17 high, and 13 wide; yet was 
neither long enough, high enough, nor wide enough to inspire 
the indefinable sentiment by which we acknowledge vastness. 
We beheld it the scene of George Robins's triumphs — crowded 
to excess. Here strolled Lord John Russell ; there, with heavy 
tread, walked Daniel O'Connell. Halla^ placid, kindly, gentle 
— the prince of book-wcrmxS — moved quickly through the rooms, 
pausing to raise a glance to the ceiling — copied from one of 
the side aisles of Henry VII. 's Chapel — but the fretwork is gilt, 
and there is 2. petitesse dhovX the Gothic which disappoints all 
good judges. 

But when Horace conducted his courtly guests into this his 
mind- vaunted vaulted gallery, he had sometimes George Selwyn 
at his side ; or Gray — or, in his old age, ^ my niece, the 
Duchess of Gloucester,' leaned on his arm. What strange as- 
sociations, what brilliant company ! — the associations can never 
be recalled there again ; nor the company reassembled. The 
gallery, like everything else, has perished under the pressure of 
debt. He who was so particular, too, as to the number of those 
who were admitted to see his house — he who stipulated that 
four persons only should compose a party, and one party alone 
be shown over each day — how would he have borne the crisis, 
could he have foreseen it, when Robins became, for the time, 
his successor, and was the temporary lord of Strawberry ; the 
dusty, ruthless, wondering, depreciating mob of brokers — 
the respectable host of publishers — the starving army of martyrs, 
the authors — the fine ladies, who saw nothing there comparable 
to Howell and James's — the antiquaries, fishing out suspicious 
antiquities — the painters, clamorous over Kneller's profile of 
Mrs. Barry — the virtuous indignant mothers, as they passed by 
the portraits of the Duchess de la Valliere, and of Ninon de 
I'Enclos, and remarked, or at all events they might have re- 
marked, that the company on the floor was scarcely mucli more 
respectable than the company on the walls — the fashionables, 
who herded together, impelled by caste, that free-masonry of 
social life, enter the Beauclerk closet to look over Lady Di's 



294 The Chapel, 

scenes from the ' Mysterious Mother' — the players and drama- 
tisls, finally, who crowded round Hogarth's sketch of his ' Beg- 
gars' Opera/ with portraits, and gazed on Davison's likeness of 
Mrs. Clive : — how could poor Horace have tolerated the sound 
of their irreverent remarks, the dust of their shoes, the degrada- 
tion of their fancying that they might doubt his spurious-looking 
antiquities, or condemn his improper-looking ladies on their 
canvas ? How, indeed, could he ? For those parlours, that 
library, were peopled in his days with all those who could en- 
hance his pleasures, or add to their own, by their presence. 
When Poverty stole in there, it was irradiated by Genius. 
When painters hovered beneath the fretted ceiling of that 
library, it was to thank the oracle of the day, not always for 
large orders, but for powerful recommendations. When 
actresses trod the Star Chamber, it was as modest friends, not 
as audacious critics on Horace, his house, and his pictures. 

Before we call up the spirits that were familiar at Strawberry 
— ere we pass through the garden-gate, the piers of which were 
copied from the tomb of Bishop William de Luda, in Ely Ca- 
thedral — let us glance at the chapel, and then a word or two 
about Walpole's neighbours and anent Twickenham. 

The front of the chapel was copied from Bishop Audley's 
tomb at Salisbury. Four panels of wood, taken from the Abbey 
of St. Edmund's Bury, displayed the portraits of Cardinal Beau- 
fort, of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and of Archbishop 
Kemp. So much for the English church. 

Next was seen a magnificent shrine in mosaic, from the 
church of St. Mary Maggiore, in Rome. This was the work of 
the noted Peter Cavalini, who constructed the tomb of Edward 
the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. The shrine had figured 
over the sepulchre of four martyrs, who rested between it in 
1257 : then the principal window in the chapel was brought 
from Bexhill in Sussex ; and displayed portraits of Henry HI. 
and his queen. 

It was not every day that gay visitors travelled down the 
dusty roads from London to visit the recluse at Strawberry : 
but Horace wanted them not, for he had neighbours. In his 
youth he had owned for his playfellow the ever witty, the pre- 



'A Dirty Little Thing' 295 

cocious, the all-fascinating Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. ^She 
was/ he wrote, ' a playfellow of mine when we were children. 
She was always a dirty little thing. This habit continued with 
her. When at Florence, the Grand Duke gave her apartments 
in his palace. One room sufficed for everything ; and when 
she went away, the stench was so strong that they were obliged 
to fumigate the chamber with vinegar fo^ a week.' 

Let not the scandal be implicitly credited. Lady Mary, 
dirty or clean, resided occasionally, however, at Twickenham. 
When the admirable Lysons composed his * Environs of Lon- 
don,' Horace Walpole was still living — it was in 1795 — to 
point out to him the house in which his brilliant acquaintance 
lived. It was then inhabited by Dr. Morton. The profligate 
and clever Duke of Wharton lived also at Twickenham. 

Marble Hill was built by George II., for the countess of 
Suffolk, and Henry, Earl of Pembroke, was the architect. Of 
later years, the beautiful and injured Mrs. Fitzherbert might be 
seen traversing the greensward, which was laved by the then 
pellucid waters of the Thames. The parish of Twickenham, 
in fact, was noted for the numerous characters who have, at 
various times, lived in it : Robert Boyle, the great philosopher; 
James Craggs, Secretary of State ; Lord George Germaine ; 
Lord Bute — are strangely mixed up with the old memories 
which circle around Twickenham, to say nothing of its being, 
in after years, the abode of Louis Philippe, and now, of his 
accomplished son. 

One dark figure in the background of society haunts us also : 
Lady Macclesfield, the cruel mother of Savage, polluted Twick- 
enham by her evil presence. 

Let us not dwell on her name, but recall, v/ith somewhat of 
pride, that the names of that knot of accomplished, intellectual 
women, who composed the neighbourhood of Strawberry, were 
all English ; those who loved to revel in all its charms of so- 
ciety and intellect were our justly-prized countrywomen. 

Foremost in the bright constellation was Anne Seymour 
Conway, too soon married to the Hon. John Damer. She was 
one of the loveliest, the most enterprizing, and the most gifted 
women of lier time — thirty-one years younger than Horace, 



296 Anne Seymour Conway, 

having been born in 1748. He doubtless liked her the more 
that no ridicule could attach to his partiality, which was that 
of a father to a daughter, insofar as regarded his young cousin. 
She belonged to a family dear to him, being the daughter of 
Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway : then she was beauti- 
ful, witty, a courageous politician, a heroine, fearless of losing 
caste, by aspiring to be an artist. She was, in truth, of our own 
time rather than of that. The works which she left at Straw- 
berry are scattered ; and if still traceable, are probably in many 
instances scarcely valued. But in that lovely spot, hallowed 
by the rem.embrance of Mrs. Siddons, who lived there in some 
humble capacity — say maid, say companion — in Guy's Cliff 
House, near Warwick — ^noble traces of Anne Damer's genius 
are extant : busts of the majestic Sally Siddons ; of Nature's 
aristocrat, John Kemble ; of his brother Charles — arrest many 
a look, call up many a thought of Anne Damer and her gifts : 
her intelligence, her warmth of heart, her beauty, her associates. 
Of her powers Horace Walpole had the highest opinion. * If 
they come to Florence,' he wrote, speaking of Mrs. Damer's 
going to Italy for the winter, ^ the great duke should beg Mrs. 
Damer to give him something of her statuary ; and it would be 
a greater curiosity than anything in his Chamber of Painters. 
She has executed several marvels since you saw her ; and has 
lately carved two colossal heads for the bridge at Henley, which 
is the most beautiful in the world, next to the Ponte di Trinitk 
and was principally designed by her father, General Conway.' 

No wonder that he left to this accomplished relative the pri- 
vilege of living, after his death, at Strawberry Hill, of which 
she took possession in 1797, and where she remained twenty 
years ;- giving it up, in 1828, to Lord Waldegrave. 

She was, as we have said, before her time in her appreciation of 
what was noble and superior, in preference to that which gives 
to caste alone, its supremacy. Daring her last years she bravely 
espoused an unfashionable cause; and disregarding the con- 
tempt of the lofty, became the champion of the injured and 
unhappy Caroline of Brunswick. 

From his retreat at Strawberry, Horace AValpole heard all 
that befel the object of his flame. Lady Sophia Fermor. His 



A Man who never Doubted, 297 

letters present from time to time such passages as these ; Lady 
Pomfret, whom he detested, being always the object of his 
satire : — 

^ There is not the least news j but that my Lord Carteret's 
wedding has been deferred on Lady Sophia's (Fermor's) falling 
dangerously ill of a scarlet fever ; but they say it is to be next 
Saturday. She is to have ;^ 1,600 a ye^ jointure, ;^4oo pin- 
money, and ;^2,ooo of jewels. Carteret says he does not intend 
to marry the mother (Lady Pomfret) and the whole family. 
What do you think my Lady intends?' 

Lord Carteret, who was the object of Lady Pomfret's suc- 
cessful generalship, was at this period, 1744, fifty-four years of 
age, having been born in 1690. He was the son of George, 
Lord Carteret, by Grace, daughter of the first Earl of Bath, of 
the line of Granville — a title which became eventually his. The 
fair Sophia, in marrying him, espoused a man of no ordinary 
attributes. In person, Horace Walpole, after the grave had 
closed over one whom he probably envied, thus describes 
him : — 

' Commanding beauty, smoothed by cheerful grace, 
Sat on each open feature of his face. 
Bold was his language, rapid, glowing, strong, 
And science flowed spontaneous from his tongue : 
A genius seizing systems, slighting rules. 
And void of gall, with boundless scorn of fools.' 

After having been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Carteret attended 
his royal master in the campaign, during which the Battle of 
Dettingen was fought. He now held the reins of government 
in his own hands as premier. Lord Chesterfield has described 
him as possessing quick precision, nice decision, and unbounded 
presumption. The Duke of Newcastle used to say of him that 
he was a ^ man who never doubted.' 

In a subsequent letter we find the sacrifice of the young and 
lovely Sophia completed. Ambition was the characteristic of 
her family : and she went, not unwillingly, to the altar. The 
whole affair is too amusingly told to be given in other language 
than that of Horace : — 

' I could tell you a great deal of news,' he writes to Horace 
Mann, ' but it would not be what you would expect. It is not 



298 Lady Sophia Fermors Marriage, 

of battles, sieges, and declarations of war; nor of invasions, in- 
surrections and addresses : it is the god of love, not he of war, 
who reigns in the newspapers. The town has made up a list 
ef six-and-thirty weddings, which I shall not catalogue to you. 
But the chief entertainment has been the nuptials of our great 
Quixote (Carteret) and the fair Sophia. On the point of matri- 
mony, she fell ill of a scarlet fever, and was given over, while he 
had the gout,but heroically sent her word, that if she was well, he 
would be well. They corresponded every day, and he used to 
plague the cabinet council with reading her letters to them. 
Last night they were married ; and as all he does must have a 
particular air in it, they supped at Lord Pomfret's. At twelve. 
Lady Granville (his mother) and all his family went to bed, but 
the porter : then my lord went home, and waited for her in the 
lodge. She came alone, in a hackney chair, met him in the 
hall, and was led up the back stairs to bed. What is ridiculously 
lucky is, that Lord Lincoln goes into waiting to-day, and will 
be to present her!' 

The event was succeeded by a great ball at the Duchess of 
Richmond's, in honour of the bride. Lady Carteret paying her 
ladyship the ' highest honours,' which she received in the ' highest 
state.' ^I have seen her,' adds Horace, ^but once, and found 
her just what I expected, tres grande daine, full of herself, and 
yet not with an air of happiness. She looks ill, and is grown 
lean, but is still the finest figure in the world. The mother 
(Lady Pomfret) is not so xxalted as I expected ; I fancy Car- 
teret has kept his resolution, and does not marry her too.' 

Whilst this game was being played out, one of Walpole's 
most valued neighbours. Pope, was dying of dropsy, and every 
evening a gentle delirium possessed him. Again does Horace 
return to the theme, ever in his thoughts — the Carterets : again 
does he recount their triumphs and their follies. 

^I will not fail' — still to Horace Mann — ^to make your com- 
pliments to the Pomfrets and Carterets. I see them seldom, 
but I am in favour ; so I conclude, for my Lady Pomfret told 
me the other night that I said better things than anybody. I 
was with them all at a subscription ball at Ranelagh last w^eek, 
which my Lady Carteret thought proper to look upon as given 



Horace m Favoitr. 299 

to her, and thanked the gentlemen, who were not quite so well 
pleased at her condescending to take it to herself. I did the 
honours of all her dress. "How charming your ladyship's 
cross is ! I am sure the design was your own !" — " No, indeed ; 
my lord sent it me just as it is." Then as much to the mother. 
Do you wonder I say better things than anybody?' 

But these brilliant scenes were soon mournfully ended. Lady 
Sophia, the haughty, the idolized, the jitlo of that gay circle, 
v/as suddenly carried off by a fever. With real feeling Horace 
thus tells the tale : — 

' Before I talk of any public news, I must tell you what you 
will be very sorry for. Lady Granville (Lady Sophia Fermor) 
is dead. She had a fever for six weeks before her lying-in, and 
could never get it off. Last Saturday they called in another 
physician. Dr. Oliver. On Monday he pronounced her out of 
danger ; about seven in the evening, as Lady Pomfret and Lady 
Charlotte (Fermor) were sitting by her, the first notice they had 
of her immediate danger was her sighing and saying, " I feel 
death come very fast upon me !" She repeated the same words 
frequently, remained perfectly in her senses and calm, and died 
about eleven at night. It is very shocking for anybody so 
young, so handsome, so arrived at the height of happiness, to 
be so quickly snatched away.' 

So vanished one of the brightest stars of the court. The 
same autumn (1745) was the epoch of a great event; the 
marching of Charles Edward into England. Whilst the Duke 
of Cumberland was preparing to head the troops to oppose 
him, the Prince of Wales was inviting a party to supper, the 
main feature of which was the citadel of Carlisle in sugar, the 
company all besieging it with sugar-plums. It would, indeed, 
as Walpole declared, be impossible to relate all the Caligidisms 
of this effeminate, absurd prince. But buffoonery and eccen- 
tricity were the order of the day. ^A ridiculous thing hap- 
pened,' Horace writes, ' when the princess saw company after 
her confinement. The new-born babe was shown in a mighty 
pretty cradle, designed by Kent, under a canopy in the great 
drawing-room. Sir William Stanhope went to look at it. Mrs. 
Herbert, the governess, advanced to unmantlc it. He said, 



300 



Anecdote of Sir W^n, Stanhope, 



"In wax, I suppose?" "Sir?" "In wax, madam?" "The 
young prince, sir?" "Yes, in wax, I suppose?" This is his 
odd humour. When he went to see the duke at his birth, he 
said, " Lord, it sees !" ' 

The recluse of Strawberry was soon consoled by hearing 
that the rebels were driven back from Derby, where they had 
penetrated, and where the remembrance of the then gay, san- 
guine, brave young Chevalier long lingered among the old in- 
habitants. One of the last traces of his short-lived possession 
of the town is gone : very recently, Exeter House, where he 
lodged and where he received his adherents, has been pulled 
down ; the ground on which it stood, with its court and gar- 
den—somewhat in appearace like an old French hotel — jbeing 
too valuable for the relic of bygone times to be spared. The 
panelled chambers, the fine staircase, certain pictures — one by 
Wright of Derby, of him — one of Miss Walkinshaw — have all 
disappeared. 

Of the capture, the trial, the death of his adherents, Horace 
Walpole has left the most graphic and therefore touching ac- 
count that has been given ; whilst he calls a ^rebelHon on the 
defensive' a ^despicable affair.' Humane, he reverted with 
horror to the atrocities of General Hawley, ^ the Chief Justice,' 
as he was designated, who had a ^ passion for frequent and 
sudden executions.' When this savage commander gained in- 
telligence of a French spy coming over, he displayed him at 
once before the army on a gallows, dangling in his muff and 
boots. When one of the surgeons begged for the body of a 
deserter to dissect, * Well,' said the wretch, *but you must let 
me have the skeleton to hang up in the guard-room.' Such was 
the temper of the times ; vice, childishness, levity at court, bru- 
tality in the camp, were the order of the day. Horace, even 
Horace, worldly in all, indifferent as to good and bad, seems to 
have been heart sick. His brother's matrimonial infidelity vexed 
him also sorely. Lady Orford, ^ tired,' as he expresses it, of 
' sublunary affairs,' was trying to come to an arrangement with 
her husband, from whom she had been long separated; the 
price was to be, he fancied, ;^2,ooo a year. Meantime, during 
the convulsive state of political affairs, he interested himself 



A Paper House. 30 r 

continually in the improvement of Strawberry Hill. There was 
a rival building, Mr. Bateman's Monastery, at Old Windsor, 
which is said to have had more uniformity of design than 
Strawberry Hill. Horace used indeed to call the house of 
which he became so proud a paper house ; the walls were at 
first so slight, and the roof so insecure in heavy rains. Never- 
theless, his days were passed as peacefully there as the prema- 
ture infirmities which came upon him wpuM permit. 

From the age of twenty-five his fingers were enlarged and 
deformed by chalk-stones, which were discharged twice a year. 
* I can chalk up a score with more rapidity than any man in 
England,' was his melancholy jest. He had now adopted as 
a necessity a strict temperance : he sat up very late, either 
writing or conversing, yet always breakfasted at nine o'clock. 
After the death of Madame du Deffand, a little fat dog, 
scarcely able to move for age and size — her legacy — used to 
proclaim his approach by barking. The little favourite was 
placed beside him on a sofa ; a tea-kettle, stand, and heater 
were brought in, and he drank two or three cups of tea out of 
the finest and most precious china of Japan — that of a pure 
white. He breakfasted with an appetite, feeding from his table 
the little dog and his pet squirrels. 

Dinner at Strawberry Hill was usually served up in the 
small parlour in winter, the large dining-room being reserved 
for large parties. As age drew on, he was supported down stairs 
by his valet ; and then, says the compiler of Walpoliana, ' he 
ate most moderately of chicken, pheasant, or any light food. 
Pastry he disliked, as difficult of digestion, though he would 
taste a morsel of venison-pie. Never but once, that he drank 
two glasses of white wine, did the editor see him taste any 
liquor, except ice-water. A pail of ice was placed under the 
table, in which stood a decanter of water, from which he sup- 
plied himself with his favourite beverage.' 

No wine was drunk after dinner, when the host of Straw- 
berry Hill called instantly to some one to ring the bell for coffee. 
It was served upstairs, and there, adds the same writer, ' he 
would pass about five o'clock, and generally resuming his place 
on the sofa, would sit till two in the morning, in miscellaneous 



302 Walpoles Habits. 

chit-chat, full of singular anecdotes, strokes of wit, and acute 
observations, occasionally sending for books, or curiosities, or 
passing to the library, as any reference happened to arise in 
conversation. After his coffee, he tasted nothing; but the 
snuff-box of tahac d'etrennes, from Fribourg's, was not forgotten, 
and was replenished from a canister lodged in an ancient marble 
urn of great thickness, which stood in the window seat, and 
served to secure its moisture and rich flavour.' 

In spite of all his infirmities, Horace Walpole took no care 
of his health, as far as out-door exercise was concerned. 
His friends beheld him with horror go out on a dewy day : he 
would even step out in his slippers. In his own grounds he 
never wore a hat : he used to say, that on his first visit to Paris 
he was ashamed of his effeminacy, when he saw every meagre 
little Frenchman whom he could have knocked down in a 
breath walking without a hat, which he could not do without a 
certainty of taking the disease which the Germans say is ende- 
mical in England, and which they call to catch cold. The first 
trial, he used to tell his friends, cost him a fever, but he got 
over it. Draughts of air, damp rooms, windows open at his 
back, became matters of indifference to him after once getting 
through the hardening process. He used even to be vexed at 
the officious solicitude of friends on this point, and with 
half a smile would say, ' My back is the same as my face, and 
my neck is like my nose.' He regarded his favourite iced- 
water as a preservative to his stomach, which, he said, would 
last longer than his bones. He did not take into account that 
the stomach is usually the seat of disease. 

One naturally inquires why the amiable recluse never, in his 
best days, thought of marriage : a difficult question to be an- 
swered. In men of that period, a dissolute life, an unhappy 
connection, too frequently explained the problem. In the case 
before us no such explanation can be offered. Horace Walpole 
had many votaries, many friends, several favourites, but no 
known m.istress. The marks of the old bachelor fastened early 
on him, more especially after he began to be governed by his 
valet de chamhre. The notable personage who ruled over the 
pliant Horace was a Swiss, named Colomb. This domestic 



Why did Jic not Marry ? 303 

tyrant was despotic ; if Horace wanted a tree to be felled, 
Colomb opposed it, and the master yielded. Servants, in those 
days, were intrinsically the same as in ours, but they differed in 
manner. The old familiarity had not gone out, but existed as 
it still does among the French. Those who recollect Dr. Parr 
will remember how stern a rule his factotum Sam exercised over 
him. Sam put down what wine he chose, nay, almost invited 
the guests ; at all events, he had his favourites among them. 
And in the same way as Sam ruled at Hatton, Colomb was, de 
facto, the master of Strawberry Hill. 

With all its defects, the little 'plaything house' as Horace 
Walpole called it, must have been a charming house to visit in. 
First, there was the host. * His engaging manners,' writes the 
editor of Walpoliana, ' and gentle, endearing affability to his 
friends, exceed all praise. Not the smallest hauteur, or con- 
sciousness of rank or talent, appeared in his familiar confer- 
ences ; and he was ever eager to dissipate any constraint that 
might occur, as imposing a constraint upon himself, and know- 
ing that any such chain enfeebles and almost annihilates the 
mental powers. Endued with exquisite sensibility, his wit never 
gave the smallest wound, even to the grossest ignorance of the 
world, or the most morbid hypochondriac bashfulness.' 

He had, in fact, no excuse for being doleful or morbid. How 
many resources were his ! what an even destiny ! what pros- 
perous fortunes ! what learned luxury he revelled in ! he was 
enabled to ' pick up all the roses of science, and to leave the 
thorns behind.' To how few of the gifted have the means of 
gratification been permitted ! to how many has hard work been 
allotted ! Then, when genius has been endowed with rank, 
with wealth, how often it has been degraded by excess ! 
Rochester's passions ran riot in one century : Beckford's gifts 
were polluted by his vices in another — signal landmarks of 
each age. But Horace Walpole was prudent, decorous, even 
respectable : no elevated aspirations, no benevolent views en- 
nobled under the petitesse of his nature. He had neither genius 
nor romance : he was even devoid of sentiment ; but he was 
social to all, neighbourly to many, and attached to some of his 
fellow-creatures. 



304 ' Dowagers as Plenty as Flounders^ 

The * prettiest bauble ' possible, as he called Strawberry 
Hill, ' set in enamelled meadows in filigree hedges,' was sur- 
romided by 'dowagers as plenty as flounders;' such was Wal- 
pole's assertion. As he sat in his library, scented by caraway, 
heliotropes, or pots of tuberose, or orange-trees in flower, 
certain dames would look in upon him, sometimes malgrelui; 
sometimes to his bachelor heart's content. 

' Thank God !' he wrote to his cousin Conway, ' the Thames 
is between me and the Duchess of Queensberry !' Walpole's 
dislike to his fair neighbour may partly have originated in the 
circumstance of her birth, and her grace's presuming to plume 
herself on what he deemed an unimportant distinction. Cathe- 
rine Hyde, Duchess of Queensberry, was the great-grand- 
daughter of the famous Lord Clarendon, and the great-niece of 
Anne, Duchess of York. Prior had in her youth celebrated her 
in the ' Female Phaeton,' as ' Kitty :' in his verse he begs 
Phaeton to give Kitty the chariot, if but for a day. 

In reference to this, Horace Walpole, in the days of his ad- 
miration of her grace, had made the following impromptu : — 

' On seeing the Duchess of Queensberry walk at the funeral 
of the Princess Dowager of Wales, — 

' To many a Kitty, Love his car 

Would for a day engage ; 
But Prior's Kitty, ever fair, 
Obtained it for an age. ' 

It was Kitty who took Gay under her patronage, who resented 
the prohibition of the * Beggar's Opera,' remonstrated with the 
king and queen, and was thereupon forbidden the court. She 
carried the poet to her house. She may have been ridiculous, 
but she had a warm, generous heart. * I am now,' Gay wrote 
to Swift in 1729, Mn the Duke of Queensberry's house, and 
have been so ever since I left Hampstead ; where I was carried 
at a time that it was thought I could not live a day. I must 
acquaint you (because I knov/ it will please you) that during my 
sickness I had many of the kindest proofs of friendship, particu- 
larly from the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry ; who, if I 
had been their nearest relation and dearest friend, could not 



Catherine Hyde, Duchess of Qiteensheny, 305 

have treated me with more constant attendance then, and they 
continue the same to me now.' 

The duchess appears to have been one of those wilful, 
eccentric, spoiled children, whom the world at once worships 
and ridicules : next to the Countess of Pomfret, she was Horace 
Walpole's pet aversion. She was well described as being * very- 
clever, very whimsical, and just not mad.' Some of Walpole's 
touches are strongly confirmatory o^this description. For 
instance, her grace gives a ball, orders every one to come at 
■six, to sup at twelve, and go away directly after : opens the ball 
herself with a minuet. To this ball she sends strange invi- 
tations ; ^ yet,' says Horace, ^ except these flights, the only 
extraordinary thing the duchess did was to do nothing extra- 
ordinary, for I do not call it very mad that some pique happen- 
ing between her and the Duchess of Bedford, the latter had this 
-distich sent to her: — 

* Come with a whistle— come with a call : 
Come with good- will, or come not at all* 

'"^I do not know whether what I am going to tell you did not 
border a little upon Moorfields. The gallery where they danced 
was very cold. Lord Lorn, George Selwyn, and I retired into 
a little room, and sat comfortably by the fire. The duchess 
looked in, said nothing, and sent a smith to take the hinges of 
the door oft". We understood the hint — left the room — and so 
did the smith the door.' 

' I must tell you,' he adds in another letter, ^ of an admirable 
reply of your acquaintance, the Duchess of Queensberry : old 
Lady Granville, Lord Carteret's mother, whom they call the 
queen-mother, from taking upon her to do the honours of her 
son's power, was pressing the duchess to ask her for some place 
for herself or friends, and assured her that she would procure it, 
be it what it would. Could she have picked out a fitter person 
to be gracious to ? The duchess made her a most grave curt- 
sey, and said, " Indeed, there was one thing she had set her 
heart on." — " Dear child, how you oblige me by asking any- 
thing ! What is it ? Tell mc." — '' Only that you would speak 

20 



3o6 Kitty Clive. 

to my Lord Carteret to get me made lady of the bedchamber 
to the Queen of Hungary." ' 

The duchess was, therefore, one of the dowagers, 'thick as 
flounders,' whose proximity was irritating to the fastidious 
bachelor. There was, however, another Kitty between whom 
and Horace a tender friendship subsisted : this was Kitty CHvCy 
the famous actress ; formerly Kitty Ruftar. Horace had given 
her a house on his estate, which he called sometimes ' Little 
Strawberry Llill,' and sometimes ' Cliveden ; and here Mrs.. 
Clive lived with her brother, Mr. Ruftar, until 1785. She 
formed, for her friend, a sort of outer-home, in which he passed 
his evenings. Long had he admired her talents. Those were- 
the days of the drama in all its glory : the opera was unfashion-^ 
able. There were, Horace writes in 1742, on the 26th of May, 
only two-and-forty people in the Opera House, in the pit and 
boxes : people were running to see ' Miss Lucy in Town,' at 
Drury Lane, and to admire Mrs. Clive, in her imitation of the 
Muscovites ; but the greatest crowds assembled to wonder at 
Garrick, in 'Wine Merchant turned Player;' and great and 
small alike rushed to Goodman's Fields to see him act all parts,, 
and to laugh at his admirable mimicry. It was perhaps, some- 
what in jealousy of the counter attraction, that Horace declared 
he saw nothing wonderful in the acting of Garrick, though it 
was then heresy to say so. ' Now I talk of players,' he adds in 
the same letter, 'tell Mr. Chute that his friend Bracegirdle 
breakfasted with me this morning.' Horace delighted in such 
intimacies, and in recalling old times. 

Mrs. Abingdon, another charming and clever actress, was 
also a denizen of Twickenham, which became the most 
fashionable village near the metropolis. Mrs. Pritchard, like- 
wise, was attracted there ; but the proximity of the Countess of 
Suffolk, who lived at Marble Hill was the delight of a great 
portion of Horace Walpole's life. Her reminiscences, her anec- 
dotes, her experience, were valuable as well as entertaining to 
one who was for ever gathering up materials for history, or for 
biography, or for letters to absent friends. 

In his own family he found little to cheer him : but if he 
hated one or two more especially — and no one could hate more 



Death of Horatio Walpole, 307 

intensely than Horace Walpole — it was his uncle, Lord Wal- 
pole, and his cousin, that nobleman's son, whom he christened 
Pigwiggin; 'my monstrous uncle ;' ' that old buffoon, my uncle ;* 
are terms which occur in his letters, and he speal<:s of the 
bloody civil wars between 'Horatio Walpole' and 'Horace 
Walpole.' 

Horatio W^alpole, the brother of Sir Robert, was created in 
June, 1756, Baron Walpole of Wolterton, as a recompense for 
fifty years passed in the public service — an honour which he 
only survived nine months. He expired in February, 1757. 
His death removed one subject of bitter dislike from the mind 
of Horace ; but enough remained in the family to excite grief 
and resentment. 

Towards his own two brothers, Robert, Earl of Orford, and 
Edward Walpole, Horace the younger, as he was styled in con- 
tradistinction to his uncle, bore very little affection. His feel- 
ings, however, for his nephew George, who succeeded his father 
as Earl of Orford in 1751, were more creditable to his heart; 
yet he gives a description of this ill-fated young man in his 
letters, which shows at once pride and disapprobation. One 
lingers with regret over the character and the destiny of this fine 
young nobleman, whose existence was rendered miserable by 
frequent attacks, at intervals, of insanity. 

Never was there a handsomer, a more popular, a more engag- 
ing being than George, third Earl of Orford. When he appeared 
at the head of the Norfolk regiment of militia, of which he was 
colonel, even the great Lord Chatham broke out into enthu- 
siasm : — ' Nothing,' he wrote, ' could make a better appearance 
than the two Norfolk battalions ; Lord Orford, with the front of 
Mars himself, and really the greatest figure under arms I ever 
saw, was the theme of every tongue.' 

His person and air, Horace Walpole declared, had a noble 
wildness in them : crowds followed the battalions when the 
king reviewed them in Hyde Park; and among the gay young 
officers in their scarlet uniforms, faced with black, in their buff 
waistcoats and gold buttons, none was so conspicuous - for 
martial bearing as Lord Orford, although classed by his uncle 



20- 



3o8 George, third Earl of Orford, 

^ among the knights of shire who had never in their lives shot 
anything but woodcocks.' 

But there was a pecuharity of character in the young peer 
which shocked Horace. ^No man/ he says in one of his 
letters, ' ever felt such a disposition to love another as I did 
to love him. I flattered myself that he would restore some 
lustre to our house — at least not let it totally sink ; but I am 
forced to give him up, and all my Walpole views. .... 
He has a good breeding, and attention when he is with you 
that is even flattering ; .... he promises, ofl"ers every- 
thing one can wish ; but this is all : the instant he leaves you, 
■all the world are nothing to him ; he would not give himself the 
east trouble in the world to give any one satisfaction ; yet this 
is mere indolence of mind, not of body : his whole pleasure is 
■outrageous exercise.' 

^He is,' in another place Horace adds, ' the most selfish man 
in the world : without being in the least interested, he loves 
nobody but himself, yet neglects every view of fortune and 
ambition. Yet,' he concludes, ' it is impossible not to love him 
when one sees him : impossible to esteem him when one thinks 
•on him.' 

The young lord, succeeding to an estate deeply encumbered, 
both by his father and grandfather, rushed on the turf, and in- 
volved himself still more. In vain did Horace the younger 
endeavour to secure for him the hand of Miss Nicholls, an 
heiress with ;^5 0,000, and, to that end, placed the young 
lady with Horace the elder (Lord Walpole), at Wolterton. The 
scheme failed : the crafty old politician thought he might as 
well benefit his own sons as his nephew, for he had himself 
claims on the Houghton estate which he expected Miss 
Nicholl's fortune might help to liquidate. 

At length the insanity and recklessness displayed by his 
nephew — the handsome martial George — induced poor Horace 
to take affairs in his own hands. His reflections, on his pay- 
ing a visit to Houghton to look after the property there, are 
pathetically expressed : — 

'Here I am again at Houghton,' he writes in March, 176 1, ^and 
alone ; in this spot where (except two hours last month) I have 



A Visit to Houghton, 309 

not been in sixteen years. Think what a crowd of reHecticns [ . . 
Here I am probably for the last time of my life : every clock 
that strikes, tells me I am an hour nearer to yonder church — 
that church into which I have not yet had courage to enter ; 
where lies that mother on whom I doated, and who doated on 
me ! There are the two rival mistresses of Houghton, neither 
of whom ever wished to enjoy it. There, too, is he who 
founded its greatness — to contribuie^ to whose fall Europe 
was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his 
friend and his foe — rather his false ally and real enemy — New- 
castle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful lives 
in squabbles and pamphlets. 

When he looked at the pictures — that famous Houghton col- 
lection — the surprise of Horace was excessive. Accustomed to 
see nothing elsewhere but daubs, he gazed with ecstasy on 
them. 'The majesty of Italian ideas,' he says, 'almost sinks 
before the warm nature of Italian colouring ! Alas \ don't I 
grow old ?' 

As he lingered in the gallery, with mingled pride and sad- 
ness, a party arrived to see the house — a man and three women 
in riding-dresses — who 'rode post' through the apartments. ' I 
could not,' he adds, ' hurry before them fast enough ; they were 
not so long in seeing the whole gallery as I could have been 
in one room, to examine what I knew by heart. I remember 
formerly being often diverted with this kind oi seers ; they come, 
ask what such a room is called in which Sir Robert lay, write 
it down, admire a lobster or a cabbage in a Market Piece, dis- 
pute whether the last room was green or purple, and then 
hurry to the inn, for fear the fish should be over-dressed. How 
different my sensations ! not a picture here but recalls a his- 
tory ; not one but I remembered in Downing Street, or Chelsea, 
where queens and crowds admired them, though seeing them as 
little as these travellers !''^ 

After tea he strolled into the garden. They told him it was 
now called 2. pleasure-groimd. To Horace it was a scene of de- 
solation — a floral Nineveh. ' What a dissonant idea of plea- 

* Sir Robert Walpole purchased a house and garden at Chelsea in 1722, near 
the college, adjoining Gough House.— Cunningham's ' London.' 



3IO Family Misfortunes. 

sure ! — those groves, those allees^ where I have passed so many- 
charming moments, were now stripped up or overgrown — many 
fond paths I could not unravel, though with an exact clue in 
my memory. I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares ! 
In the days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and viva- 
city (and you will think perhaps it is far from being out of 
tune yet), I hated Houghton and its solitude ; yet I loved this 
garden, as now, with many regrets, I love Houghton — Hough- 
ton, I know not what to call it — a monument of grandeur or 
ruin r 

Although he did not go with the expectation of finding a 
land flowing with milk and honey, the sight of all this ruin 
long saddened his thoughts. All was confusion, disorder, debts, 
mortgages, sales, pillage, villainy, waste, folly, and madness. 
The nettles and brambles in the park wxre up to his shoulders • 
horses had been turned into the garden, and banditti lodged in 
every cottage. 

The perpetuity of livings that came up to the very park- 
palings had been sold, and the farms let at half their value. 
Certainly, if Houghton were bought by Sir Robert Walpole 
with public money, that public was now avenged. 

The owner of this rained property had just stemmed the 
torrent ; but the worst was to come. The pictures were sold, 
and to Russia they went. 

Whilst thus harassed by family misfortunes, other annoyances 
came. The mournful story of Chatterton's fate was painfully 
mixed up with the tenour of Horace Walpole's life. 

The gifted and unfortunate Thomas Chatterton was born 
at Bristol in 1752. Even from his birth fate seemed to pursue 
him, for he was a posthumous son : and if the loss of a father 
m the highest ranks of life be severely felt, how much more 
so is it to be deplored in those w^hich are termed the working 
classes ! 

The friendless enthusiast was slow in learning to read ; but 
when the illuminated capitals of an old book were presented 
to him, he quicky learned his letters. This fact, and his being 
taught to read out of a black-letter Bible, are said to have ac- 
counted for his facihty in the imitation of antiquities. 



Poor Chatter ton, 31 1 

Pensive and taciturn, he picked up education at a charity- 
school, until apprenticed to a scrivener, when he began that 
battle of life which ended to him so fatally. 

Upon very slight accidents did his destiny hinge. In those 
days women worked with thread, and used thread-papers. Now 
paper was, at that time, dear : dainty matrons liked tasty 
thread-papers. A pretty set of thread-papers, with birds or 
flowers painted on each, was no meari present for a friend. 
Chatterton, a quiet child, one day noticed that his mother's 
thread-papers were of no ordinary materials. They were made 
of parchment, and on this parchment was some of the black- 
letter characters by which his childish attention had been fixed 
to his book. The fact was, that his uncle was sexton to the 
ancient church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol ; and the parch- 
ment was the fruit of theft. Chatterton's father had carried off, 
from a room in the church, certain ancient manuscripts, which 
had been left about ; being originally abstracted from what was 
called Mr. Canynge's coflin. Mr. Canynge, an eminent mer- 
chant, had rebuilt St. Mary Redcliffe in the reign of Edward 
IV. : and the parchments, therefore, were of some antiquity. 
The antiquary groans over their loss in vain : Chatterton's father 
had covered his books with them ; his mother had used up the 
strips for thread-papers; and Thomas Chatterton himself 
contrived to abstract a considerable portion also, for his own 
purposes. . 

He was ingenious, industrious, a poet by nature, and, won- 
derful to say, withal a herald by taste. Upon his nefarious 
possessions, he founded a scheme of literary forgeries ; pur- 
porting to be ancient pieces of poetry found in Canynge's 
chest ; and described as being the production of Thomas Can- 
ynge and of his friend, one Thomas Rowley, a priest. Money 
and books were sent to Chatterton in return for little strips of 
vellum, which he passed off as the original itself; and the suc- 
cessful forger might now be seen in deep thought, walking in 
the meadows near Redcliffe ; a marked, admired, poetic youth. 

In 1769, Chatterton wrote to Horace Walpole, offering to 
send him some accounts of eminent painters who had flourished 
at Bristol, and at the same time mentioning the discovery of 



312 Walpoles Concern with Chatter to7i, 

the poems, and enclosing some specimens. In a subsequent 
letter he begged Walpole to aid him in his wish to. be freed 
from his then servile condition, and to be placed in one more 
congenial to his pursuits. 

In his choice of a patron poor Chatterton made a fatal mis- 
take. The benevolence of Horace was of a general kind, and 
never descended to anything obscure or unappreciated. There 
was a certain hardness in that nature of his which had so 
pleasant an aspect. ' An artist,' he once said, ^ has his pencils 
— an author his pens — and the public must reward them as it 
pleases.' Alas ! he forgot how long it is before penury, even 
ennobled by genius, can make itself seen, heard, approved, re-^ 
paid : how vast is the influence oi prestige / how generous the 
hand which is extended to those in want, even if in error ! All 
that Horace did, however, was strictly correct : he showed the 
poems to Gray and Mason, who pronounced them forgeries ; 
and he wrote a cold and reproving letter to the starving author : 
and no one could blame him : Chatterton demanded back his 
poems j Walpole was going to Paris, and forgot to return them. 
Another letter came : the wounded poet again demanded them, 
adding that Walpole would not have dared to use him so had 
he not been poor. The poems were returned in a blank cover : 
and here all Walpole's concern with Thomas Chatterton ends. 
All this happened in 1769. In August, 1770, the remains of 
the unhappy youth were carried to the burial-ground of Shoe 
Lane workhouse, near Holborn. He had swallowed arsenic ;, 
had lingered a day in agonies ; and then, at the age of eighteen 
expired. Starvation had prompted the act : yet on the day be- 
fore he had committed it, he had refused a dinner, of which he 
was invited by his hostess to partake, assuring her that he was 
not hungry. Just or unjust, the world has never forgiven Ho- 
race Walpole for Chatterton's misery. His indifference has 
been contrasted with the generosity of Edmund Burke to 
Crabbe : a generosity to which we owe ^ The Village,' * The 
Borough,' and to which Crabbe owed his peaceful old age, and 
almost his existence. The cases were different ; but Crabbe 
had his faults — and Chatterton was worth saving. It is well for 
genius that there are souls in the world more sympathizing, less 



Walpole m Paris, 313 

worldly, and more indulgent, than those of such men as Horace^ 
Walpole. .Even the editor of 'Walpoliana' lets judgment ga 
by default. ' As to artists,' he says, ' he paid them what they 
earned, and he commonly employed mean ones, that the reward 
might be smaller.' 

Let us change the strain : stilled be the mournful note on 
which we have rested too long. What have wits and beaux 
and men of society to do with poets and beggars ? Behold, 
Horace, when he has written his monitory letter, packs up for 
Paris. Let us follow him there, and see him in the very centre 
of his pleasures — in the salo7i of La Marquise du Deffand. 

Horace Walpole had perfected his education, as a fine gen- 
tleman, by his intimacy with Madame Geoffrin, to whom Lady 
Hervey had introduced him. She called him le noitveau Riche- 
lieu; and Horace was sensible of so great a compliment from 
a woman at once ' spirituelle and pieiise' — a combination rare 
in France. Nevertheless, she had the national views of matri- 
mony. ' What have you done, Madame,' said a foreigner to- 
her, ' with the poor man I used to see here, who never spoke a 
word ?' 

^ Ah, vion Dieu P was the reply, ^ that was my husband : he 
is dead.' She spoke in the same tone as if she had been speci- 
fying the last new opera, or referring to the latest work in vogue :. 
things just passed away. 

The Marquise die Deffand was a very different personage to< 
Madame Geoffrin, whose great enemy she was. When Horace 
Walpole first entered into the society of the Marquise, she was 
stone blind, and old ; but retained not only her wit, and her 
memory, but her passions. Passions, like artificial flowers, are 
unbecoming to age : and those of the witty, atheistical Marquise 
are almost revolting. Scandal still attached her name to that 
of Henault, of whom Voltaire wrote the epitaph beginning 

' Henault, fameus par vos soupers 
Et votre " chronologie," ' &c. 

Henault was for many years deaf; and, during tlie whole oi 
his life, disagreeable. There was something farcical in the old 
man's receptions on his death-bed ; whilst, amongst the rest of 



3 14 -^ necdote of Madame Geoffrin. 

the company came Madame du Deffand, a blind old woman of 
seventy, who, bawling in his ear, aroused the lethargic man, by 
inquiring after a former rival of hers, Madame de Castelmaron 
— about whom he went on babbling until death stopped his 
voice. 

She was seventy years of age when Horace Walpole, at fifty, 
T^ecame her passion. She was poor and disreputable, and even 
the high position of having been mistress to the regent could 
not save her from being decried by a large portion of that so- 
ciety which centered round the bel esprit, ' She was,' observes 
the biographer of Horace Walpole (the lamented author of the 
^ Crescent and the Cross,') ' always gay, always charming — 
everything but a Christian.' The loss of her eyesight did not 
impair the remains of her beauty ; her replies, her compliments, 
were brilliant; even from one whose best organs of expression 
were mute. 

A frequent guest at her suppers, Walpole's kindness, real or 
pretended, soon made inroads on a heart still susceptible. The 
€ver-green passions of this venerable sinner threw out fresh 
shoots ; and she became enamoured of the attentive and ad- 
mired Englishman. Horace was susceptible of ridicule : there 
his somewhat icy heart was easily touched. Partly in vanity, 
partly in playfulness, he encouraged the sentimental exaggera- 
tion of his correspondent ; but, becoming afraid of the world's 
laughter, ended by reproving her warmth, and by chilling, under 
the refrigerating influence of his cautions, all the romance of 
the octogenarian. 

In later days, however, after his solicitude — partly soothed 
by the return of his letters to Madame du Deffand, partly by 
her death — ^had completely subsided, a happier friendship was 
permitted to solace his now increasing infirmities^ as well as to 
enhance his social pleasures.' 

It was during the year 1788, when he was living in retire- 
ment at Strawberry, that his auspicious friendship was formed. 
The only grain of ambition he had left he declared was to be- 
lieve himself forgotten ; that was * the thread that had run 
through his life ;' * so true,' he adds, * except the folly of being 
an author, has been what I said last year to the Prince' (after- 



The Miss Berrys, 315 

wards George IV.), 'when he asked me "If I was a Free- 
mason," I repUed, " N*o sir ; I never was anything." ' 

Lady Charleville told him that some of her friends had been 
to see Strawberry. 'Lord !' cried one lady, 'who is that Mr. 
Walpole ?' ' Lord !' cried a second j ' don't you know the great 
epicure, Mr. Walpole?* 'Who?' cried the first,— 'great epi- 
cure ! you mean the antiquarian.' ' Surety,' adds Horace, ' this 
anecdote may take its place in the chapter of local fame.' 

But he reverts to his new acquisition — the acquaintance of 
the Miss Berrys, who had accidentally taken a house next to 
his at Strawberry Hill. Their story, he adds, was a curious 
one : their descent Scotch ; their grandfather had an estate of 
^S,ooo a year, but disinherited his son on account of his 
marrying a woman with no fortune. She died, and the grand- 
father, wishing for an heir-male, pressed the widower to marry 
again : he refused ; and said he would devote himself to the 
education of his two daughters. The second son generously 
gave up ;2{^8oo a year to his brother, and the two motherless 
girls were taken to the Continent, whence they returned the 
' best informed and most perfect creatures that Horace Walpole 
ever saw at their age.' 

Sensible, natural, frank, their conversation proved most 
agreeable to a man who was sated of grand society, and sick 
of vanity until he had indulged in vexation of spirit. He dis- 
covered by chance only — for there w^as no pedantry in these 
truly well-educated women — that the eldest understood Latin, 
and 'was a perfect Frenchv/oman in her language. Then the 
youngest drew well ; and copied one of Lady Di Beauclerk's 
pictures, ' The Gipsies,' though she had never attempted colours 
before. Then, as to looks : Mary, the eldest, had a sweet face, 
the more interesting from being pale ; with fine dark eyes that 
were lighted up when she spoke. Agnes, the younger, was 
* hardly to be called handsome, but almost ;' w^ith an agreeable 
sensible countenance. It is remarkable that women thus de- 
lineated — not beauties, yet not plain — are always the most fas- 
cinating to men. The sisters doted on each other: Mary 
taking the lead in society. * I must even tell you,' Horace 
wrote to the Countess of Ossory, ' that they dress within the 



3i6 Horaces Two ^ Straw Berries J 

bounds of fashion, but without the excrescences and balconies, 
with which modern hoydens overwhelm and barricade their 
persons.' (One would almost have supposed that Horace had 
lived in the days of crinoline.') 

The first night that Horace met the two sisters, he refused to^ 
be introduced to them : having heard so much of them that he. 
concluded they would be ^all pretension.' The second night 
that he met them, he sat next Mary, and found her an ' angel 
both inside and out' He did not know which he liked best ; 
but Mary's face, which was formed for a sentimental novel, or,, 
still more, for genteel comedy, riveted him, he owned. Mr. 
Berry, the father, was a little ' merry man with a round face,* 
whom no one would have suspected of sacrificing ' all for love,, 
and the world well lost.' This delightful family visited him 
every Sunday evening ; the region of Twickenham being too 
^proclamatory' for cards to be introduced on the seventh day, 
conversation was tried instead ; thankful, indeed, was Horace, for 
the ' pearls,' as he styled them, thus thrown in his path. His. 
two ^ Strawberries,' as he christened them, were henceforth the 
theme of every letter. He had set up a printing-press many 
years previously at Strawberry, and on taking the young ladieSt 
to see it, he remembered the gallantry of his former days, and. 
they found these stanzas in type : — 

' To Mary's lips has ancient Rome 

Her purest language taught ; 
And from the modern city home 
^ Agnes its pencil brought. 

' Rome's ancient Horace sweetly chants 

Such maids with lyric fire ; 
Albion's old Horace sings nor paints, 
He only can admire. 

' Still would his press their fame record, 

So amiable the pair is ! 
But, ah ! how vain to think his word 
Can add a straw to Berry's. ' 

On the following day, Mary, whom he terms the Latin nymplv 
sent the following lines : — 

' Had Rome's famed Horace thus addrest 

His Lydia or his Lyce, 
He had ne'er so oft complained their breast 
To him was cold and icy. 



Tapping a Nezv Reign. 2^7 

' But had they sought their joy to explain, 

Or praise their generous bard, 
Perhaps, hke me, they had tried in vain, 
And felt the task too hard.' 

The society of this family gave Horace Walpole the truest, 
and perhaps the only relish he ever had of domestic life. But 
his mind was harassed towards the close of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, by the insanity not only of his n^hew, but by the great 
national calamity, that of the king. * Every eighty-eight seems,' 
he remarks, 'to be a favourite period with fate;' he was 'too 
ancient,' he said, ' to tap what might almost be called a new 
reign ;' of which he was not likely to see much. He never 
pretended to penetration, but his foresight, ' if he gave it the 
reign, would not prognosticate much felicity to the country from 
the madness of his father, and the probable regency of the 
Prince of Wales. His happiest relations were now not with 
politics or literature, but with Mrs. Damer and the Miss Berrys, 
to whom he wrote : — ' I am afraid of protesting how much I 
delight in your society, lest I should seem to affect being gal- 
lant j but, if two negatives make an affirmative, why may not 
two ridicules compose one piece of sense ? and, therefore, as I 
am in love with you both, I trust it is a proof of the good sense 
of your devoted — H. Walpole.' 

He was doomed, in the decline of life, to witness two great 
national convulsions : of the insurrection of 1745 he wrote feel- 
ingly — ^justly — almost pithetically : forty-five years later he was. 
tired, he said, of railing against French barbarity and folly. 
' Legislators ! a Senate ! to neglect laws, in order to annihilate 
coats-of-arms and liveries !' George Selwyn said, that Monsieur 
the king's brother was the only man of rank from whom they 
could not take a title. His alarm at the idea of his two 
young friends going to the Continent was excessive. The 
flame of revolution had burst forth at Florence : Flanders was 
not a safe road ; dreadful horrors had been perpetrated at 
Avignon. Then he relates a characteristic anecdote of poor 
Marie Antoinette! She went with the king to see the manu- 
facture of glass. As they passed the Halle, the poissardes 
hurra'd them. 'Upon my word,' said the queen, 'these 



3 1 8 The Sign of the Gothic Castle, 

folks are civiller when you visit them, than when they visit 
you.' 

Walpole's affection for the Miss Berrys cast a glow of happi- 
ness over the fast-ebbing years of his life. * In happy days,' he ' 
wrote to them when they were abroad, ' I called you my dear 
wives; now I can only think of you as darling children, of, 
whom I am bereaved.' He was proud of their affection ; proud 
of their spending many hours with ' a very old man,' whilst 
they were the objects of general admiration. These charming 
women survived until our own time : the centre of a circle of 
the leading characters in literature, politics, art, rank, and virtue. 
They are remembered with true regret. The fulness of their* 
age perfected the promise of their youth. Samuel Rogers used 
to say that they had lived in the reign of Queen Anne, so far 
back seemed their memories which were so coupled to the 
past ; but the youth of their minds, their feelings, their intelli- 
gence, remained almost to the last. 

For many years Horace Walpole continued, in spite of inces- 
sant attacks of the gout, to keep almost open house at Straw- 
berry ; in short, he said, he kept an inn — the sign, the Gothic 
Castle ! ' Take my advice,' he wrote to a friend, ' never build a 
charming house for yourself between London and Hampton 
Court ; everybody will live in it but you.' 

The death of Lady Suffolk, in 1767, had been an essential 
loss to her partial, and not too rigid neighbours. Two days 
before the death of George II. she had gone to Kensington 
not knowing that there was a review there. Hemmed in by 
coaches, she found herself close to George II. and to Lady 
Yarmouth. Neither of them knew her — a circumstance which 
greatly affected the countess. 

Horace Walpole was now desirous of growing old with dignity. 
He had no wish * to dress up a withered person, nor to drag it 
about to public places ;' but he was equally averse from ^ sitting 
at home, wrapped up in flannels,' to receive condolences from 
people he did not care for — and attentions from relations 
who were impatient for his death. Well might a writer in the 
^Quarterly Review' remark, that our most useful lessons in 
reading Walpole's Letters are not only derived from his sound 



Growing Old zvitk Dignify, 3 1 9* 

sense, but from ' considering this man of the world, fall of in- 
formation and sparkling with vivacity, stretched on a sick bed, 
and apprehending all the tedious languor of helpless decrepi- 
tude and deserted solitude/ His later years had been diver- 
sified by correspondence with Hannah More, who sent him her 
poem of the Bas Bleu, into which she had introduced his name. 
In 1786 she visited him at Strawberry Hill. He was then a 
martyr to the gout, but with spirits gay as ever : ' I never knew 
a man suffer pain with such entire patience,' was Hannah More's 
remark. His correspondence with her continued regularly ; but 
that with the charming sisters was delightfully interrupted by 
their residence at little Strawberry Hill — Cliveden, as it was also 
called, where day after day, night after night, they gleaned 
stores from that rich fund of anecdote which went back to the 
days of George I., touched even on the anterior epoch of Anne, 
and came in volumes of amusement down to the very era when 
the old man was sitting by his parlour fire, happy with his wives 
near him, resigned and cheerful. For his young friends he com- 
posed his ^ Reminiscences of the Court of England.* 

He still wrote cheerfully of his physical state, in which eye- 
sight was perfect ; hearing little impaired ; and though his hands 
and feet were crippled, he could use them ; and since he neither 
^ wished to box, to wrestle, nor to dance a hornpipe,' he was 
contented. 

His character became softer, his wit less caustic, his heart 
more tender, his talk more reverent, as he approached the term 
of a long, prosperous life — and knew, practically, the small 
value of all that he had once too fondly prized. 

His later years were disturbed by the marriage of his niece 
Maria Waldegrave to the Duke of Gloucester : but the severest 
interruption to his peace was his own succession to an Earldom. 

In 1 791, George, Earl of Orford, expired; leaving an estate 
encumbered with debt, and, added to the bequest, a series of 
lawsuits threatened to break down all remaining comfort in the 
mind of the uncle, who had already suffered so much on the 
young man's account. 

Horace Walpole disdained the honours which brought him. 
such solid trouble, with such empty titles, and for som^ time re- 



320 



Succession to an Earldom, 



fused to sign himself otherwise but ^ Uncle to the late Earl of 
Orford.' He was certainly not likely to be able to walk in his 
robes to the House of Lords, or to grace a levee. However, 
he thanked God he was free from pain. ' Since all my fingers 
are useless/ he wrote to Hannah More, * and that I have only 
six hairs left, I am not very much grieved at not being able to 
comb my head !' To Hannah More he wrote in all sincerity, 
referring to his elevation to the peerage : ' For the other empty 
metamorphosis that has happened to the outward man, you do 
me justice in believing that it can do nothing but tease me ; it 
is being called names in one's old age :* in fact, he reckoned 
on being styled * Lord Mcthusalem.' He had lived to hear of 
the cruel deaths of the once gay and high-born friends whom 
he had known in Paris, by the guillotine : he had lived to exe- 
crate the monsters who persecuted the grandest heroine of mo- 
dern times, Marie Antoinette, to madness ; he lived to censure 
the infatuation of religious zeal in the Birmingham riots. *Are 
not the devils escaped out of the swine, and overrunning the 
earth headlong ?' — he asked in one of his letters. 

He had offered his hand, and all the ambitious views which 
it opened, to each of the Miss Berrys successively, but they re- 
fused to bear his name, though they still cheered his solitude : 
and, strange to say, two of the most admired and beloved women 
of their time remained single. 

In 1796, the sinking invalid was persuaded to remove to 
Berkeley Square, to be within reach of good and prompt advice. 
He consented unwillingly, for his * Gothic Castle' was his fa- 
vourite abode. He left it with a presentiment that he should 
see it no more ; but he followed the proffered advice, and in 
the spring of the year was established in Berkeley Square. Llis 
mind was still clear. He seems to have cherished to the last 
a concern for that literary fame which he affected to despise. 
* Literature has,' he said, ' many revolutions ; if an author could 
rise from the dead, after a hundred years, what would be his 
surprise at the adventures of his works 1 I often say, perhaps 
my books may be published in Paternoster Row !' Lie would 
indeed have been astonished at the vast circulation of his 
Letters^ and the popularity which has carried them into every 



Let Its not he Ungrateful Z^l 

aristocratic family in England. It is remarkable that among the 
middle and lower classes they are far less known, for he waa 
essentially the chronicler, as well as the wit and beau, of St. 
James's, of Windsor, and Richmond. 

At last he declared that he should M)e content with a sprig 
of rosemary' thrown on him when the parson of the parish 
commits his ' dust to dust.' The end of his now suffering exist- 
ence was near at hand. Irritability, oi^kf of the impitied ac- 
companiments of weakness, seemed to compete with the 
gathering clouds of mental darkness as the last hour drew on. 
At intervals there were flashes of a wit that appeared at that 
solemn moment hardly natural, and that must have startled 
rather than pleased, the watchful friends around him. He be- 
, came unjust in his fretfulness, and those' who loved him most 
! could not wish to see him survive the wreck of his intellect. 
i Fever came on, and he died on the 2nd of March, 1797. 
! He had collected his letters from his friends : these epistles 
were deposited in two boxes, one marked with an A., the other 
j with a B. The chest A. was not to be opened until the eldest 
son of his grandniece. Lady Laura, should attain the age of 
twenty-five. The chest was found to contain memoirs, and 
bundles of letters ready for publication. 

It was singular, at the sale of the effects at Strawberry Hill, 
to see this chest, with the MSS. in the clean Horatian hand, 
and to reflect how poignant would have been the anguish of the 
' writer could he have seen his Gothic Castle given up for four- 
teen days, to all that could pain the living, or degrade the dead. 
Peace to his manes, prince of letter-writers ; prince com- 
panion of beaux ; wit of the highest order ! Without thy pen, 
society in the eighteenth century would have been to us almost 
j as dead as the ham inondc of Pompeii, or the remains of Etruscan 
\ leaders of the ton. Let us not be ungrateful to our Horace : 
\ we owe him more than we could ever have calculated on before 
I we knew him through his works : prejudiced, he was not false ; 
' cold, he was rarely cruel ; egotistical, he was seldom vain-glori- 
ous. Iwery age should have a Horace Walpole ; every country 
! possess a chronicler so sure, so keen to perceive, so exact to 
delineate peculiarities, manners, characters, and events. 




GEORGE SELWYN. 




A Love of Horrors. — Anecdotes of Selwyn's Mother. — Selwyn's College Days. 
— Orator Henley. — Selwyn's Blasphemous Freak. — The Profession of a 
Wit.^The Thirst for Hazard. — Reynolds's Conversation-Piece. — Selwyns 
Eccentricities and Witticisms. — ^A most Important Communication. — An 
Amateur Headsman. — ^The Eloquence of Indifference. — Catching a House- 
breaker. — ^The Family of the Selwyns. — ^The Man of the People. — Selwyn's 
Parliamentary Career. — True Wit. — Some of Selwyn's Witty Sayings. — The 
Sovereignty of the People. — On two kinds of Wit. — Selwyn's Love for 
Children. — Mie-Mie, the Little Italian. — Selwyn's Little Companion taken 
from him. — His Later Days and Death. 

HAVE heard, at times, of maiden ladies of a certain 
age who found pleasure in the affection of ^ spotted 
snakes with double tongue, thorny hedge-hogs, newts, 
and in live worms.' I frequently meet ladies who think con- 
versation lacks interest without the recital of ^ melancholy 
deaths,' ^ fatal diseases,' and ^ mournful cases ;' on ne disputes pas 
les gouts, and certainly the taste for the night side of nature 
seems immensely prevalent among the lower orders — in whom, 
perhaps, the terrible only can rouse from a sullen insensibility. 
What happy people ! I always think to myself, when I hear of 
the huge attendance on the last tragic performance at Newgate ; 
how very little they can see of mournful and horrible in common 
life, if they seek it out so eagerly, and relish it so thoroughly, 
when they find it ! I don't know ; for my own part, gaudeamus. 
I have always thought that the text, ^ Blessed are they that 
mourn,' referred to the inner private life, not to a perpetual dis- 
play of sackcloth and ashes j but I know not. I can under- 
stand the weeping-willow taste among people, who have too 
little wit or too little Christianity to be cheerful, but it is a v/on- 
der to find the luxury of gloom united to the keenest percep- 
tion of the laughable in such a man as George Selwyn. 



A Love of Horrors, 323 

If human beings could be made pets, like Miss Tabitha's 
snake or toad, Selwyn would have fondled a hangman. He 
loved the noble art of execution, and was a connoisseur of the 
execution of the art. In childhood he must have decapitated 
his rocking-horse, hanged his doll in a miniature gallows, and 
burnt his baubles at mimic stakes. The man whose calm eye 
was watched for the quiet sparkle tha,t announced— and only 
that ever did announce it — the flashing wit within the mind, 
by a gay crowd of loungers at Arthur's, might be found next 
day rummaging among coffins in a damp vault, glorying in a 
mummy, confessing and preparing a live criminal, paying any 
sum for a relic of a dead one, or pressing eagerly forward to 
witness the dying agonies of a condemned man. 

Yet Walpole and Warner both bore the highest testimony to 
the goodness of his heart ; and it is impossible to doubt that 
his nature was as gentle as a woman's. There have been other 
instances of even educated men delighting in scenes of suffering; 
but in general their characters have been more or less gross, their 
heads more or less insensible. The husband of Madame Recamier 
went daily to see the guillotine do its vile work during the reign 
of Terror ; but then he was a man who never wept over the death 
of a friend. The man who was devoted to a little child, whom he 
adopted and treated with the tenderest care, was very different 
from M. Recamier — and that he had a heart there is no doubt. 
He was an anomaly, and famous for being so ; though, perhaps, 
his well-known eccentricity was taken advantage of by his witty 
friends, and many a story fathered on Selwyn which has no 
origin but in the brain of its narrator. 

George Augustus Selwyn, then, famous for his wit, and noto- 
rious for his love of horrors, was the second son of a country 
gentleman, of Matson, in Gloucestershire, Colonel John Selwyn, 
who had been an aide-de-camp of Marlborough's, and after- 
wards a frequenter of the courts of the first two Georges. He 
inherited his wit chiefly from his mother, Mary, the daughter of 
General Farington or Farringdon, of the county of Kent. 
Walpole tells us that she figured among the beauties of the 
court of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and was bedcham- 
ber-woman to Queen Caroline. Her character was not spotless, 

21 — 2 



324 Anecdotes of Sclwyn^s Mother, 

for we hear of an intrigue, which her own mistress imparted in 
confidence to the Duchess of Orleans (the mother of the Re- 
gent : they wrote on her tomb Cy gist roisivete, because idleness 
is the mot/ic?^ of all vice), and which eventually found its way 
into the ' Utrecht Gazette.' It was Mrs. Selwyn, too, who said 
. to George IL, that he was the last person she would ever have 
an intrigue with, because she was sure he would tell the queen 
of it : it was well known that that very virtuous sovereign made 
his wife the confidante of his amours, which was even more 
shameless than young De Sdvignd's taking advice from his mother 
on his intrigue with Ninon de I'Enclos. She seems to have 
been reputed a wit, for Walpole retails her 7?iots as if they were 
worth it, but they are not very remarkable : for instance, when 
Miss Pelham lost a pair of diamond earrings, which she had 
borrowed, and tried to faint when the loss was discovered, some 
one called for lavender -drops as a restorative. ' Pooh !' cries 
Mrs. Selwyn, ^ give her diamond-drops.' 

George Augustus was born on the nth of August, 17 19. 
Walpole says that he knew him at eight years old, and as the 
two were at Eton about the same time, it is presumed that they 
were contemporaries there. In fact, a list of the boys there, in 
1732, furnished to Eliot Warburton, contains the names of Wal- 
l)ole, Selwyn, Edgecumbe, and Conway, all in after-life intimate 
friends and correspondents. From Eton to Oxford was the 
natural course, and George was duly entered at Hertford Col- 
lege. He did not long grace Alma Mater, for the grand tour 
had to be made, and London life to be begun, but he was there 
long enough to contract the usual Oxford debts, which his 
father consented to pay more than once. It is amusing to find 
the son getting Dr. Newton to write him a contrite and respect- 
ful letter to the angry parent, to liquidate the ' small accounts' 
accumulated in London and Oxford as early as 1740. Three 
years later we find him in Paris, leading a gay life, and writing 
respectful letters to England for more money. Previously to 
tb.is, however, he had obtained, through his father, the sinecure 
of Clerk of the Irons and surveyor of the Meltmgs at the Mint, 
a comfortable litde appointment, the duties of which were per- 
formed l)y deputy, wliile its holder contented himself with 



Orator Henley. 325 

honestly acknowledging the salary, and dining onxe a week, 
when in town, with the officers of the Mint, and at the Govern- 
ment's expense. 

So far the young gentleman went on well enough, but in 
1744 he returned to England, and his rather rampant character 
showed itself in more than one disgraceful affair. 

Among the London shows was Orator Henley, a clergyman 
and clergyman's son, and a member of^t. John's, Cambridge. 
He had come to London about this time, and instituted a se- 
ries of lectures on universal knowledge and primitive Christi- 
anity. He styled himself a Rationalist, a title then more ho- 
nourable than it is now; and in grandiloquent language, 
' spouted' on religious subjects to an audience admitted at a 
shilling a-head. On one occasion he announced a disputation 
among any two of his hearers, offering to give an impartial 
hearing and judgment to both. Selwyn and the young Lord 
Carteret were prepared, and stood up, the one to defend the ig- 
norance, the other the impudence, of Orator Henley himself; 
so, at least, it is inferred from a passage in D'Israeli the Elder. 
The uproar that ensued can well be imagined. Henley himself 
made his escape by a back door. His pulpit, all gilt, has been 
immortalized by Pope, as ' Henley's gilt tub ;' in which — 

' Imbrown'd with native bronze, lo ! Henley stands, 
Tuning his voice and balancing his hands.' 

The affair gave rise to a correspondence between the Orator 
and his young friends ; who, doubtless, came off best in the 
matter. 

This was harmless enough, but George's next freak was not 
so excusable. The circumstances of this affair are narrated in 
a letter from Captain Nicholson, his friend, to George Selwyn ; 
and may, therefore, be relied on. It appears that being at a 
certain club in Oxford, at a wine party with his friends, George 
sent to a certain silversmith's for a certain chalice, intrusted to 
the shopkeeper from a certain church to be repaired in a 
certain manner. This being brought. Master George — then, be 
it remembered, not at the delicate and frivolous age of most 
Oxford boys, but at the mature one of six-and-twenty — filled it 
with wi'ne, and handing it round, used the sacred words, * Drink 



326 Selwyn's Blasphemous Freak, 

this in remembrance of me.' This was a blasphemous parody 
of the most sacred rite of the Church. All Selwyn could say 
for himself was, that he was drunk when he did it. The other 
plea, that he did it in ridicule of the transubstantiation of the 
Romish Church, could not stand at all ; and was most weakly 
put forward. Let Oxford Dons be what they will ; let them 
put a stop to all religious inquiry, and nearly expel Adam Smith 
for reading Hume's ' Essay on Human Nature ;' let them be, 
as many allege, narrow-minded, hypocritical, and ignorant ; we 
cannot charge them with wrong-dealing in expelling the origi- 
nator of such open blasphemy, which nothing can be found to 
palliate, and of which its perpetrator did not appear to repent, 
rather complaining that the treatment of the Dons was harsh. 
The act of expulsion was, of course, considered in the same 
light by his numerous acquaintance, many of whom condoled 
with him on the occasion. It is true, the Oxford Dons are often 
charged with injustice and partiality, and too often the evidence 
is not sufficiently strong to excuse their judgments ; but in this 
the evidence was not denied ; only a palliative was put in, which 
every one can see through. The only injustice we can discover 
in this case is, that the head of Hart Hall, as Hertford College 
was called, seemed to have been influenced in pronouncing his 
sentence of expulsion by certain previous suspicions, having no 
bearing on the question before him, which had been entertained 
by another set of tutors — those of Christchurch — where Selwyn 
had many friends, and where, probably enough, he indulged in 
many collegian's freaks. This knack of bringing up a mere 
suspicion, is truly characteristic of the Oxford Don, and since 
the same Head of this House — Dr. Newton — acknowledged 
that Selwyn was, during his Oxford career, neither intemperate, 
dissolute, nor a gamester, it is fair to give him the advantage 
of the doubt, that the judgment on the evidence had been in- 
fluenced by the consideration of ^suspicions' of former mis- 
deeds, which had not been proved, perhaps never committed. 
Knowing the after-life of the man, we can, however, scarcely 
doubt that George had led a fast life at the University, and 
given cause for mistrust. But one may ask whether Dons, 
whose love of drinking, and whose tendency to jest on the most 



The Profession of a Wit. 327 

solemn subjects, are well known even in the present day, might 
not have treated Selwyn less harshly for what was done under 
the influence of wine ? To this we are inclined to reply, that 
no punishment is too severe for profanation ; and that drunken- 
ness is not an excuse, but an aggravation. Selwyn threatened 
to appeal, and took advice on the matter. This, as usual, was 
vain. Many an expelled man, more unjustly treated than Sel- 
wyn, has talked of appeal in vain. Appeal to whom ? to what ? 
Appeal against men who never acknowledge themselves wrong, 
and who, to maintain that they are right, will listen to evidence 
which they can see is contradictory, and which they know to be 
worthless ! An appeal from an Oxford decision is as hopeless 
in the present day as it was in Selwyn's. He wisely left it 
alone, but less wisely insisted on reappearing in Oxford, against 
the advice of all his friends, whose characters were lost if the 
ostracised man were seen among them. 

From this time he entered upon his ^ profession,' that of a 
wit, gambler, club-lounger, and man about town; for these 
many characters are all mixed in the one which is generally 
called ' a wit.' Let us remember that he was good-hearted, and 
not ill-intentioned, though imbued with the false ideas of his 
day. He was not a great man, but a great wit. 

The localities in which the trade of wit was plied were, then, 
the clubs, and the drawing-rooms of fashionable beauties. The 
former were in Selwyn's youth still limnted in the number of 
their members, thirty constituting a large club ; and as the sub- 
scribers were all known to one another, presented an admirable 
field for display of mental powers in conversation. In fact, 
the early clubs were nothing more than dining-societies, pre- 
cisely the same in theory as our breakfasting arrangements at 
Oxford, which were every whit as exclusive, though not bal- 
loted for. The ballot, however, and the principle of a single 
black ball suffering to negative an election were not only, under 
such circumstances, excusable, but even necessary for the 
actual preservation of peace. Of course, in a succession of 
dinner-parties, if any two members were at all opposed to one 
other, the awkwardness would be intolerable. In the present 



3,28 The Thirst for Hazard. 

flay, two men may belong to the same club and scarcely meet^ 
even on the stairs, oftener than once or twice in a season. 

Gradually, however, in the place of the ' feast of reason and 
flow of soul' and wine, instead of the evenings spent in toasting, 
talking, emptying bottles and filling heads, as in the case of the 
old Kit-kat, men took to the monstrous amusement of exam- 
ining fate, and on club-tables the dice rattled far more freely 
than the glasses, though these latter were not necessarily aban- 
doned. Then came the thirst for hazard that brought men 
early in the day to try their fortune, and thus made the club- 
room a lounge. Selwyn was an habitual frequenter of Brookes.' 

Brookes' was, perhaps, the principal club of the day, though 
^White's Chocolate House' was almost on a par with it. But 
Selwyn did not confine his attention solely to this club. It 
was the fashion to belong to as many of them as possible, and 
Wilberforce mentions no less than five to which he himself be- 
longed : Brookes', Boodle's, White's, Miles and Evans's in New 
Palace Yard, and Goosetree's. As their names imply, these 
were all, originally, mere coffee-houses, kept by men of the 
above names. One or two rooms then sufiiced for the require- 
ments of a small party, and it was not till the members were 
greatly increased that the coftee-house rose majestically to the 
dignity of a bow-window, and was entirely and exclusively ap- 
propriated to the requirements of the club. 

This was especially the case with White's, of which so many 
of the wits and talkers of Selwyn's day were members. Who 
does not know that bow-window at the top of St. James's Street, 
where there are sure, about three or four in the afternoon, to 
be at least three gentlemen, two old and one young, standing, 
to the exclusion of light within, talking and contemplating the 
oft-repeated movement outside. White's was established as 
early as 1698, and was thus one of the original coffee-houses. 
It was then kept by a man named Arthur : here Chesterfield 
gamed and talked, to be succeeded by Gilly Williams, Charles 
Townshend, and George Selwyn. The old house was burnt 
down in 1733. It was at White's — or as Hogarth calls it in 
his pictorial squib. Black's — that, when a man fell dead at the 
door, he was lugged in and bets made as to whether he was 



Reynolds' Conversation-Piece. 329 

dead or no. The surgeon's operations were opposed, for fear 
of disturbing the bets. Here, too, did George Selvvyn and 
Charles Townshend pit their wit against wit ; and here Pelham 
passed all the time he was not forced to devote to politics. In 
short it was, next to Brookes', the club of the day, and perhaps 
in some respects had a greater renown than even that famous 
club, and its play was as high. 

In Brookes' and White's Selwpi appeared with a twofold 
fame, that of a pronouncer of hon-mots^ and that of a lover of 
horrors. His wit was of the quaintest order. He was no in- 
veterate talker, like Sydney Smith ; no clever dissimulator, like 
Mr. Hook. Calmly, almost sanctimoniously, he uttered those 
neat and telling sayings which the next day passed over Eng- 
land as ' Selwyn's last.' Walpole describes his manner admir- 
ably — his eyes turned up, his mouth set primly, a look almost 
of melancholy in his whole face. Reynolds, in his Conversa- 
tion-piece, celebrated when in the Strawbeny Collection, and 
representing Selwyn leaning on a chair, Gilly Williams, crayon 
in hand, and Dick Edgecumbe by his side, has caught the 
pseudo-solemn expression of his face admirably. The ease of 
the figure, one hand empochee, the other holding a paper of 
epigrams, or what not, the huge waistcoat with a dozen buttons 
and huge flaps, the ruffled sleeve, the bob-wig, all belong to 
the outer man ; but the calm, quiet, almost enquiring face, the 
look half of melancholy, half of reproach, and, as the Milesian 
would say, the other half of sleek wisdom ; the long nose, the 
prim mouth and joined lips, the elevated brow, and beneath it 
the quiet contemplative eye, contemplative not of heaven or 
hell, but of this world as it had seen it, in its most worldly 
point of view, yet twinkling with a flashing thought of incon- 
gruity made congruous, are the indices of the inner man. Most 
of our wits, it must have been seen, have had some other in- 
terest and occupation in life than that of ' making wit :' some 
have been authors, some statesmen, some soldiers, some wild- 
rakes, and some players of tricks : Selwyn had no profession 
but that oi diseiLr de hons mots ; for though he sat in the House, 
he took no prominent part in politics ; though he gambled ex- 
tensively, he did not game for the sake of money only. Thus 



330 Selwyn^s Eccentricities and Witticisms, 

his life was that merely of a London bachelor, with few inci- 
dents to mark it, 'and therefore his memoir must resolve itself 
more or less into a series of anecdotes of his eccentricities and 
list of his witticisms. 

His friend Walpole gives us an immense number of both, not 
all of a first-rate nature, nor many interesting in the present 
day. Selwyn, calm as he was, brought out his sayings on the 
spur of the moment, and their appropriateness to the occasion 
was one of their greatest recommendations. A good saying, 
like a good sermon, depends much on its delivery, and loses 
much in print. Nothing less immortal than wit! To take 
first, however, the eccentricities of his character, and especially 
his love of horrors, we find anecdotes by the dozen retailed of 
him. It was so well known, that Lord Holland, when dying, 
ordered his servant to be sure to admit Mr. Selwyn if he called 
to enquire after him, ' for if I am alive,' said he, ' I shall be 
glad to see him, and if I am dead, he will be glad to see me.' 
The name of Holland leads us to an anecdote told by Walpole. 
Selwyn was looking over Combury with Lord Abergavenny 
and Mrs. Frere, ' who loved one another a little,' and was dis- 
gusted with the frivolity of the woman who could take no in- 
terest in anything worth seeing. ^ You don't know what you 
missed in the other room,' he cried at last, peevishly. ^ Why, 
what ?'— ' Why, my Lord Holland's picture.'—' Well, what is 
my Lord Holland to me ?' ' Don't you know,' whispered the 
wit mysteriously, 'that Lord Holland's body lies in the same 
vault in Kensington Church with my Lord Abergavenny's 
mother?' 'Lord! she was so obliged,' says Walpole, 'and 
thanked him a thousand times !' 

Selwyn knew the vaults as thoroughly as old Anthony Wood 

knew the brasses. The elder Craggs had risen by the favour 

of Marlborough, whose footman he had .been, and his son was 

- eventually a Secretary of State. Arthur Moore, the father of 

James Moore Smyth, of whom Pope wrote— 

• Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, 
Imputes to me and my damned works the cause 

had worn a livery too. When Craggs got into a coach with 



A 



A Most Important Communication, 331 

him, he exclaimed, ' Why, Arthur, I am always getting up be- 
hind, are not you ?' Walpole having related this story to Sel- 
wyn, the latter told him, as a most important communication, 
that Arthur Moore had had his coffin chained to that of his 
mistress. ' Lord ! how do you know ?' asked Horace. ' Why, 
I saw them the other day in a vault at St. Giles's.' ' Oh ! your 
servant, Mr. Selwyn,' cried the man who^howed the tombs at 
Westminster Abbey, ' I expected to see you here the other day 
when the old Duke of Richmond's body was taken up.' 

Criminals were, of course, included in his passion. Walpole 
affirms that he had a great share in bringing Lord Dacre's foot- 
man, who had murdered the butler, to confess his crime. In 
writing the confession, the ingenious plush coolly stopped and 
asked how 'murdered' was spelt. But it mattered little to 
George whether the criminal were alive or dead, and he de- 
fended his eccentric taste with his usual wit ; when rallied by 
some women for going to see the Jacobite Lord Lovat's head 
cut off, he retorted, sharply—' I made full amends, for I went 
to see it sewn on again.' He had indeed done so, and given 
the company at the undertaker's a touch of his favourite blas- 
phemy, for when the man of coffins had done his work and laid 
the body in its box, Selwyn, imitating the voice of the Lord 
Chancellor at the trial, muttered, ' My Lord Lovat, you may rise.' 
He said a better thing on the trial of a confederate of Lovat's, 
that Lord Kilmarnock, with whom the ladies fell so desperately 
in love as he stood on his defence. Mrs. Bethel, who was 
famous for a hatchet-face, was among the fair spectators : ' What 
a shame it is,' quoth the wit, /to turn her face to the prisoners 
before they are condemned !' Terrible, indeed, was that in- 
strument of death to those men, who had in the heat of battle 
so gallantly met sword and blunderbuss. The slow, sure 
approach of the day of the scaffold was a thousand times 
worse than the roar of cannon. Lord Cromarty was par- 
doned, solely, it was said, from pity for his poor wife, who was 
at the time of the trial far advanced in pregnancy. It was 
affirmed that the child born had a distinct mark of an axe on 
his neck. Credat Judczus! Walpole used to say that Selwyn 
never thought but a la tete tranchee, and that when he went to 



332 An A mateiir Headsman, 

have a tooth drawn, he told the dentist he would drop his 
handkerchief by way of signal Certain it is that he did love 
an execution, whatever he or his friends may have done to re- 
move the impression of this extraordinary taste. Some better 
men than Selwyn have had the same, and Macaulay accuses 
Penn of a similar affection. The best known anecdote of Sel- 
wyn's peculiarity relates to the execution of Damiens, who was 
torn with red-hot pincers, and finally quartered by four horses, 
for the attempt to assassinate Louis XV. On the day fixed, 
George mingled with the crowd plainly dressed, and managed 
to press forward close to the place of torture. The execu- 
tioner observing him, eagerly cried out, ' Fait es place pour Mon- 
sieur ; dest un Anglais et un amatetir;'' or, as another version 
goes, he was asked if he was not himself a bourreau, — ' Non, 
Monsieur^ he is said to have answered, 'je n'ai pas cet honneur; 
je ne suis qu'un amateur^ The story is more than apocryphal, for 
Selwyn is not the only person of whom it has been told ; and 
he was even accused, according to Wraxall, of going to execu- 
tions in female costume. George Selwyn must have passed as 
a ^ remarkably fine woman,' in that case. 

It is only justice to him to say that the many stories of his 
attending executions were supposed to be inventions of Sir 
Charles Hanbury Williams, another wit, and of Chesterfield, 
another, and a rival. In confirmation, it is adduced that when 
the former had been relating some new account, and an old 
friend of Selwyn's expressed his surprise that he had never 
heard the tale before, the hero of it replied quietly, ' No wonder 
at all, for Sir Charles has just invented it, and knows that I will 
not by contradiction spoil the pleasure of the company he is so 
highly entertaining.' 

Wit has been called ' the eloquence of indifference ;' no one 
seems ever to have been so indifferent about everything, but 
his little daughter, as George Selwyn. He always, however, 
took up the joke, and when asked why he had not been to 
see one Charles Fox, a low criminal, hanged at Tyburn, an- 
swered, quietly, ' I make a point of never going to rehearsals: 

Selwyn's love for this kind of thing, to believe his most inti- 
mate friend, Horace Walpole, was quite a fact. His friend 



Catching a Housebreaker, 333 

relates that he even bargained for the High Sheriff's wand, after 
it was broken, at the condemnation of the gallant Lords, but 
said, ' that he behaved so like an attorney the first day, and so 
like a pettifogger the second, that he would not take it to light 
his fire with.' 

The State Trials, of course, interested George more than 
any other in his eventless life; he dined after the sentence 
with the celebrated Lady Townshend, ;who was so devoted to 
Lord Kilmarnock — ^ 

' Pitied by gentle minds, Kilmarnock died' — Johnson, 

that she is said to have even stayed under his windows, when 
he was in prison ; but he treated her anxiety with such lightness 
that the lady burst into tears, and ^ flung up-stairs.' ^George,' 
writes Walpole to Montagu, ' coolly took Mrs. Dorcas, her 
woman, and bade her sit down to finish the bottle. — "And 
pray," said Dorcas, " do you think my lady will be prevailed 
upon to let me go and see the execution ? I have a friend that 
has promised to take care of me, and I can lie in the Tower 
the night before." Could she have talked more pleasantly to 
Selwyn ?' 

His contemporaries certainly believed in his love for Nevvr- 
gatism ; for when Walpole had caught a housebreaker in a 
neighbour's area, he immediately despatched a messenger to 
White's for the philo-criminalist, who was sure to be playing at 
the Club any time before daylight. It happened that the 
drawer at the ^ Chocolate-house' had been himself lately robbed, 
and therefore stole to George with fear and trembling, and 
muttered mysteriously to him, ' Mr. Walpole's compliments, and 
he has got a housebreaker for you.' Of course Selwyn obeyed 
the summons readily, and the event concluded, as such events 
do nine times out of ten, with a quiet capture, and much ado 
about nothing. 

The- Selwyns were a powerful family in Gloucestershire, 
owning a great deal of property in the neighbourhood of 
Gloucester itself The old colonel had represented that city in 
Parliament for many years. On the 5th of November, 1751, he 
died. His eldest son had gone a few months before him. This 



334 ^he Family of the Selwyns, 

son had been also at Eton, and was an early friend of Horace 
Walpole and General Conway. His death left George sole heir 
to the property, and very much he seemed to have needed the 
heritage. 

The property of the Selwyns lay in the picturesque district of 
the Northern Cotswolds. Anybody who has passed a day in the 
dull city of Gloucester, which seems to break into anything like 
life only at an election, lying dormant in the intervals, has been 
glad to rush out to enjoy air and a fine view on Robin Hood's 
Hill, a favourite walk with the worthy citizens, though what the 
jovial archer of merry Sherwood had to do with it, or whether 
he was ever in Gloucestershire at all, I profess I know not. 
Walpole describes the hill with humorous exaggeration. ' It is 
lofty enough for an alp, yet is a mountain of turf to the very 
top, has wood scattered all over it, springs that long to be cas- 
cades in many places of it, and from the summit it beats even 
Sir George Littleton's views, by having the city of Gloucester 
at its foot, and the Severn widening to the horizon.' On the 
very summit of the next hill. Chosen-down, is a solitary church, 
and the legend saith that the good people who built it did so 
originally at the foot of the steep mount, but that the Virgin 
Mary carried up the stones by night, till the builder, in despair, 
was compelled to erect it on the top. Others attribute the 
mysterious act to a very different personage, and with appa- 
rently more reason, for the position of the church must keep 
many an old sinner from hearing service. 

At Matson, then, on Robin Hood's Hill, the Selwyns lived ; 
Walpole says that the ' house is small, but neat. King Charles 
lay here at the seige, and the Duke of York, with typical fury, 
hacked and hewed the window-shutters of his chamber as a 
memorandum of his being there. And here is the very flower- 
pot and counterfeit association for which Bishop Sprat was 
taken up, and the Duke of Marlborough sent to the Tower. 
The reservoirs on the hill supply the city. The late Mr. Selwyn 
governed the borough by them— and I believe by some wine 
too.' Probably, or at least by some beer, if the modern electors 
be not much altered from their forefathers. 

Besides this important estate, the Selwyns had another at 



' The Man of the People: 335 

Ludgershall, and their influence there was so complete, that 
they might fairly be said to give one seat to any one they 
chose. With such double barrels George Selwyn was, of 
course, a great gun in the House, but his interest lay far more 
in piquet and pleasantry than in politics and patriotism, and he 
was never fired off with any but the blank cartridges of his two 
votes. His parliamentary career, begun in 1747, lasted more 
than forty years, yet was entirely without distinction. He, how- 
ever, amused both parties with his wit, and by snoring in uniso?z 
with Lord North. This must have been trying to Mr. Speaker 
Cornwall, who was longing, no doubt, to snore also, and dared 
not. He was probably the only Speaker who presided over so 
august an assembly as our English Parliament with a pewter 
pot of porter at his elbow, sending for more and more to 
Bellamy's till his heavy eyes closed of themselves. A modern 
M.P., carried back by some fancies to 'the Senate' of those 
days, might reasonably doubt whether his guide had not taken 
him by mistake to some Coal-hole or Cider-cellar, presided 
over by some former Baron Nicholson, and whether the furious 
eloquence of Messrs. Fox, Pitt, and Burke were not got up for 
the amusement of an audience admitted at sixpence a head. 

Selwyn's political jokes we rethe delight of Bellamy's! He 
said that Fox and Pitt reminded him of Hogarth's Idle and 
Industrious Apprentices. When asked by some one, as he 
sauntered out of the house — ' Is the House up ?' he replied ; 
^ No, but Burke is.' The length of Burke's elaborate spoken 
essays was proverbial, and obtained for him the name of the 
^Dinner-bell.' Fox was talking one day at Brookes' of the ad- 
vantageous peace he had made with France, and that he had 
even induced that country to give up the gu77z trade to England. 
^ That, Charles,' quoth Selwyn, sharply, ' I am not at all sur- 
prised at ; for having drawn your teeth, they would be d d 

fools to quarrel with you about gums.' Fox was often the 
object of his good-natured satire. As every one knows, his 
boast was to be called ' The Man of the People,' though 
perhaps he cared as litde for the great unwashed as for the 
wealth and happiness of the waiters at his clubs.' Every one 
knows, too, what a dissolute life he led for many years. Selwyn's 



33^ SelwyrHs Parliamentary Career, 

sleepiness was well known. He slept in the House ; he slept, 
after losing p^8oo ^ and with as many more before him/ upon 
the gaming-table, with the dice-box ^stamped close to his ears;' 
he slept, or half-slept, even in conversation, which he seems to 
have caught by fits and starts. Thus it was that words he 
heard suggested different senses, partly from being only dimly 
associated with the subject on the tapis. So, when, they were 
talking around of the war, and whether it should be a sea war 
or a Continent war, Selwyn woke up just enough to say, ' I am 
for a sea war and a Co?itme7it admiral.' 

When Fox had ruined himself, and a subscription for him 
was talked of, some one asked how they thought ^he would 
take it.' — ^ Take it,' cried Selwyn, suddenly lighting up, 'why, 
quarterly to be sure. 

His parliamentary career was then quite uneventful ; but at 
the dissolution in 1780, he found that his security at Gloucester 
was threatened. He was not Whig enough for that consti- 
tuency, and had throughout supported the war with America. 
He offered himself, of course, but was rejected with scorn, and 
forced to fly for a seat to Ludgershall. Walpole writes to Lady 
Ossory : ' They ' (the Gloucester people) ' hanged him in effigy, 
and dressed up a figure of Mie-Mie ' (his adopted daughter), 
' and pinned on its breast these words, alluding to the gallows : — 
" This is what I told you you would come to !" ' From 
Gloucester he went to Ludgershall, where he was received by 
ringing of bells and bonfires. 'Being driven out of my capital,' 
said he, ' and coming into that country of turnips, where I was 
adored, I seemed to be arrived in my Hanoverian dominions ' 
— no bad hit at George II. For Ludgershall he sat for many 
years, with Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, whose ' Memoirs ' are better 
known than trusted, as colleague. That writer says of Selwyn, 
that he was ' thoroughly well versed in our history, and master 
of many curious as well as secret anecdotes, relative to the 
houses of Stuart and Brunswick.' 

Another hoii-mot^ not in connection with politics, is reported 
by Walpole as incomparable.' Lord George Gordon asked 
him if the Ludgershall electors would take him (Lord George) 
for Ludgershall, adding, 'if you would recommend me, they 



True Wit. 337 

would choose me, if I came from the coast of Africa.' — ^ That 
is according to what part of the coast you came from j they 
would certainly, if you came from the Guinea coast.' ' Now, 
Madam,' writes his friend, ^ is not this true inspiration as well as 
true wit ? Had any one asked him in which of the four quarters 
of the world Guinea is situated, could he have told ?' Walpole 
did not perhaps know master George thoroughly — he was 
neither so ignorant nor so indifferent as he seemed. His man- 
ner got him the character of being both jj^ut he was a still fool 
that ran deep. 

Though Selwyn did little with his two votes, he m.ade them 
pay ; and in addition to the post in the Mint, got out of the 
party he supported those of Registrar to the Court of Chancery 
in the Island of Barbadoes, a sinecure done by deputy, Sur- 
veyor of the Crown Lands, and Paymaster to the Board of 
Works. The wits of White's added the title of ^Receiver- 
General of Waif and Stray Jokes.' It is said that his hostility to 
Sheridan arose from the latter having lost him the office in the 
Works in 1782, when Burke's Bill for reducing the Civil List 
came into operation ; but this is not at all probable, as his dis- 
like was shown long before that period. Apropos of the Board 
of Works, Walpole gives another anecdote. On one occasion, 
in 1780, Lord George Gordon had been the only opponent on 
a division. Selwyn afterwards took him in his carriage 
to White's. ' I have brought,' said he, ^ the whole Oppo- 
sition in my coach, and I hope one coach will always hold 
them, if they mean to take away the Board of Works.' 

Undoubtedly, Selwyn's wit wanted the manner of the man to 
make it so popular, for, as we read it, it is often rather mild. 
To string a Hst of them together : — 

Lady Coventry showed him her new dress all covered with 
spangles as large as shillings. ' Bless my soul,' said he, ' you'll 
be change for a guinea.' 

Fox, debtor and bankrupt as he was, had taken lodgings 
with Fitzpatrick at an oilman's in Piccadilly. Every one pitied 
the landlord, who would certainly be ruined. ^ Not a bit of it,' 
quoth George ; * he'll have the credit of keeping at his house the 
finest pickles in London.' 



338 Some of SelwytHs Witty Sayings, 

Sometimes there was a good touch of satire on his times^ 
When ^ High Life Below Stairs ' was first acted, Selwyn vowed 
he would go and see it, for he was sick of low life above stairs ; 
and when a waiter at his Club had been convicted of felony, 
^What a horrid idea,' said he, 'the man will give of us in 
Newgate T 

Dining with Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, he heard him 
say, in answer to a question about musical instruments in the 
East, 'I believe I saw one /^r^ there.' — 'Ay,' whispered the wit 
to his neighbour, ' and there's one less since he left the country.' 
Bruce shared the travellers' reputation of drawing the long-bow 
to a very considerable extent. 

Two of Selwyn's best mots were about one of the Foley 
family, who were so deeply in debt that they had ' to go ta 
Texas,' or Boulogne, to escape the money-lenders. 'That,' 
quoth Selwyn, 'is 2, pass-over which will not be much relished 
by the Jews.' And again, when it was said that they would 
be able to cancel their father's old will by a new-found one, he 
profanely indulged in a pun far too impious to be repeated in 
our day, however it may have been relished in Selwyn's time. 

A picture called ' The Daughter of Pharaoh ' in which the 
Princess Royal and her attendant ladies figured as the saver of 
Moses and her handmaids, was being exhibited in 1782, at a 
house opposite Brookes', and was to be the companion-piece ta 
Copley's ' Death of Chatham.' George said he could recom- 
mend a better companion, to wit — the ' Sons of Pharaoh ' a;t 
the opposite house. It is scarcely necessary to explain that 
pharaoh or faro was the most popular game of hazard then 
played. 

Walking one day with Lord Pembroke, and being besieged 
by a troop of small chimney-climbers, begging — Selwyn, after 
bearing their importunity very calmly for some time, suddenly 
turned round, and with the most serious face thus addressed 
them — ' I have often heard of the sovereignty of the people ; 
I suppose your highnesses are in Court mourning.' We can 
well imagine the effect of this sedate speech on the astonished 
youngsters. 

Pelham's truculency was well known. Walpole and his 







SELWYX ACKNONVLKDGES THE "SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE.' 



See p. rss 



On two Kinds of Wit. 339 

friend went to the sale of his plate in 1755. ^ Lord/ said the 
wit, ' how many toads have been eaten off these plates T 

The jokes were not always very delicate. When, in the 
middle of the summer of 1751, Lord North, who had been 
twice married before, espoused the widow of the Earl of 
Rockingham, who was fearfully stout, Selwyn suggested that 
she had been kept in ice for three days before the wedding. 
So, too, when there was talk of another ejnbonpoint personage 
going to America during the war, he reftiarked that she would 
make a capital breast-Y^oxk. 

One of the few epigrams he ever wrote — ^if not the only one, 
of which there is some doubt — ^was in the same spirit. It is on 
the discovery of a pair of shoes in a certain lady's bed — 

* Well may Suspicion shake its head- 
Well may Clorinda's spouse be jealous, 
When the dear wanton tnl:es to bed 

Her very shoes — because tho-yvQ fellows. ' 

Such are a few specimens of George Selw}^n's wit ; and 
dozens more are dispersed though Walpole's Letters. As 
EHot Warburton remarks, they do not give us a very high idea 
of the humour of the period ; but two things must be taken into 
consideration before we deprecate their author's title to the 
dignity and reputation he enjoyed so abundantly among his 
contemporaries ; they are not necessarily the best specimens 
that might have been given, if more of his 7;wts had been pre- 
served ; and their effect on his listeners depended more on the 
manner of delivery than on the matter. That they were im- 
provised and unpremeditated is another important consideration. 
It is quite unfair to compare them, as Warburton does, with the 
hebdomadal trash of ' Punch,' though perhaps they would stand 
the comparison pretty well. It is one thing to force wit with 
plenty of time to invent and meditate it — another to have so 
much wit within you that you can bring it out on any occasion; 
one thing to compose a good fancy for 77io/iey — another to utter 
it only when it flashes through the brain. 

But it matters litde what we in the present day may think of 
Selwyn's wit, for conversation is spoiled by bottling, and should 
be drawn fresh when wanted. Selwyn's companions — all men 

22 — 2 



340 Selwyn's Real Character. 

of wit, more or less, affirmed him to be the most amusing man 
of his day, and that was all the part he had to play. No real 
wit ever hopes to talk for posterity ; and written wit is of a very 
different character to the more sparkling, if less solid, creations 
of a moment. 

■^e have seen Selwyn in many points of view, not all very 
creditable to him ; first, expelled from Oxford for blasphemy ; 
next, a professed gambler and the associate of men who led 
fashion in those days, it is true, but then it was very bad 
fashion ; then as a lover of hangmen, a wit and a lounger. 
There is reason to believe that Selwyn, though less openly re- 
probate than many of his associates, was, in his quiet way, just 
as bad as any of them, if we except the Duke of Queensberry, 
his intimate friend, or the disgusting ^ Franciscans' of Medmen- 
ham Abbey, of whom, though not the founder, nor even a 
member, he was, in a manner, the suggester in his blasphemy. 

But Selwyn's real character is only seen in profile in all these 
accounts. He had at the bottom of such vice, to which his 
position, and the fashion of the day introduced him, a far better 
heart than any of his contemporaries, and in some respects a 
kind of simplicity which was endearing. He was neither knave 
nor fool. He was not a voluptuary, like his friend the duke ; 
nor a continued drunkard, like many other ' fine gentlemen' 
with whom he mixed ; nor a cheat, though a gambler ; nor a 
sceptic, like his friend Walpole ; nor a blasphemer, like 
the Medmenham set, though he had once parodied profanely 
a sacred rite ; nor was he steeped in debt, as Fox was ; nor 
does he appear to have been a practised seducer, as too many 
of his acquaintance were. Not that these negative qualities are 
to his praise ; but if we look at the age and the society around 
him, we must, at least, admit that Selwyn was not one of the 
worst of that wicked set. 

But the most pleasing point in the character of the old 
bachelor — for he was too much of a wit ever to marry — is his 
affection for children — not his own. That is, not avowedly his 
own, for it was often suspected that the little ones he took up 
so fondly bore some relationship to him, and there can be little 
doubt that Selwyn, like everybody else in that evil age, had his 



Mie-Mie, the Little Italian, 341 

intrigues. He did not die in his sins, and that is almost all we 
can say for him. He gave up gaming in time, protesting that 
it was the bane of four much better things — health, money, 
time, and thinking. For the last two, perhaps, he cared little. 
Before his death he is said to have been a Christian, which was 
a decided rarity in the fashionable set of his day. Walpole 
answered, when asked if he was a Freemason, that he never had 
been anytJwig, and probably most of the men of the time would, 
if they had had the honesty, have said the same. They were 
not atheists professedly, but they neither believed in nor prac- 
tised Christianity. 

His love for children has been called one of his eccentrici- 
ties. It would be a hard name to give it if he had not been a 
club-lounger of his day. I have sufficient faith in human nature 
to trust that two-thirds of the men of this country have that 
most amiable eccentricity. But in Selwyn it amounted to some- 
thing more than in the ordinary paterfamilias : it was almost a 
passion. He was almost motherly in his celibate tenderness to 
the little ones to whom he took a fancy. This affection he 
showed to several of the children, sons or daughters, of his 
friends ; but to two especially, Anne Coventry and Maria 
Fagniani. 

The former was the daughter of the beautiful Maria Gunning, 
who became Countess of Coventry. Nanny, as he called her, 
was four years old when her mother died, and from that time 
he treated her almost as his own child. 

But Mie-Mie, as the little Italian was called, was far more 
favoured. Whoever may have been the child*s father, her 
mother was a rather beautiful and very immoral woman, the 
wife of the Marchese Fagniani. She seems to have desired to 
make the most for her daughter out of the extraordinary rivalry 
of the two English ^ gentlemen,' and they were admirably taken 
in by her. Whatever the truth may have been, Selwyn's love for 
children showed itself more strongly in this case than in any 
other ; and, oddly enough, it seems to have begun when the 
little girl was at an age when children scarcely interest other 
men than their fathers — in short, in infancy. Her parents al- 
lowed him to have the sole charge of her at a very early age, 



342 Selwyii's Little Companion taken from Him, 

when they returned to the Continent; but in 1777, the mar- 
chioness, being then in Brussels, claimed her daughter back 
again ; though less, it seems, from any great anxiety on the 
child's account, than because her husband's parents, in Milan, 
objected to. their grand-daughter being left in England; and 
also, not a little, from fear of the voice of Mrs. Grundy. Selwyn 
seems to have used all kinds of arguments to retain the child ; 
and a long correspondence took place, which the marchesa 
begins with, ^ My very dear friend,' and many affectionate ex- 
pressions, and concludes with a haughty ' Sir,' and her opinion 
that his conduct was ^devilish.' The affair was, therefore, clearly 
a violent quarrel, and Selwyn was obliged at last to give up the 
child. He had a carriage fitted up for her expressly for her 
journey ; made out for her a list of the best hotels on her route; 
sent his own confidential man-servant with her, and treasured 
up among his ' relics' the childish little notes, in a large scrawl- 
ing hand, which Mie-Mie sent him. Still more curious was it 
to see this complete man of the world, this gambler for many 
years, this club-lounger, drinker, associate of well-dressed 
blasphemers, of Franciscans of Medmenham Abbey, devoting, 
not his money only, but his very time to this mere child, leaving 
town in the height of the season for dull Matson, that she 
might have fresh air ; quitting his hot club-rooms, his nights 
spent at the piquet-table, and the rattle of the dice, for the 
quiet, pleasant terraces of his country-house, where he would 
hold the little innocent Mie-Mie by her tiny hand, as she looked 
up into his shrivelled dissipated face ; quitting the interchange 
of wit, the society of the Townshends, the Walpoles, the Wil- 
liamses, the Edgecumbes ; all the jovial, keen wisdom of Gilly, 
and Dick, and Horace, and Charles, as they called one another, 
for the meaningless prattle, the merry laughter of this half-En- 
glish, half-Italian child. It redeems Selwyn in our eyes, and it 
may have done him real good : nay, he must have felt a keen 
refreshment in this change from vice to innocence ; and we un- 
derstand the misery he expressed, when the old bachelor's one 
little companion and only pure friend was taken away from him. 
His love for the child was well known in London society ; and 
of it did Sheridan's friends take advantage, when they wanted 



His later Days and Death, 343 

to get Selwyn out of Brookes', to prevent his black-balling the 
dramatist. The anecdote is given in the next memoir. 

In his later days Selwyn still haunted the clubs, hanging 
about, sleepy, shrivelled, dilapidated in face and figure, yet still 
respected and dreaded by the youngsters, as the ' celebrated 
Mr. Selwyn.' The wit's disease — gout — carried him off at last, 
in 1 791, at the age of seventy-two. 

He left a fortune which was not contemptible : ^£^33, 000 of 
it were to go to Mie-Mie — by this time a young lady — and as 
the Duke of Queensberry, at his death, left her no less than 
^150,000, Miss was by no means a bad match for Lord Yar- 
mouth.'^ See what a good thing it is to have three papas, when 
two of them are rich ! The duke made Lord Yarmouth his re- 
siduary legatee, and between him and his wife divided nearly 
half-a-million. 

Let us not forget in closing this sketch of George Selwyn's 
life, that, gambler and reprobate as he was, he possessed some 
good traits, among which his love of children appears in shining 
colours. 

* Afterwards the well-known and dissolute Marquis of Hertford. 





RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 

Sheridan a Dunce. — Boyish Dreams of Literary Fame. — Sheridan in Love. — A 
Nest of Nightingales. — ^The 'Maid of Bath.' — Captivated by Genius. — 
Sheridan's Elopement with ' Cecilia.' — His Duel with Captain Matthews. — 
Standards of Ridicule. — Painful Family Estrangements. — Enters Dniry 
Lane. — Success of the Famous ' School for Scandal.' — Opinions of Sheri- 
dan and his Influence. — The Literary Club. — ^Anecdote of Garrick's Admit- 
tance. — Origin of the ' Rejected Addresses.' — New Flights. — Pohtical Am- 
bition. — The Gaming Mania. — Almacks'. — Brookes'. — Black-balled. — ^Two 
Versions of the Election Trick. — St. Stephen's Won. — ^Vocal Difficulties. — 
Leads a Double Life. — Pitt's Vulgar Attack. — Sheridan's Happy Retort. — 
Grattan's Quip. — Sheridan's SaUies. — The Trial cf Warren Hastings. — 
Wonderful Effect of Sheridan's Eloquence. — ^The Supreme Effort. — ^The 
Star Culminates. — Native Taste for SwindHng. — A Shrewd but Graceless 
Oxonian. — Duns Outwitted. — ^The Lawyer Jockeyed. — ^Adventures with 
BaiHffs. — Sheridan's Powers of Persuasion. — House of Commons Greek. — 
Curious Mimicry. — ^The Royal Boon Company. — Street Frolics at Night. — 
AnOldTale.— 'All's well that ends well.'— The Fray in St. Giles.'— Un- 
opened Letters. — ^An Odd Incident. — Reckless Extravagance. — Sporting 
Ambition. — Like Father like Son. — A Severe and Witty Rebuke. — Intem- 
perance. — Convivial Excesses of a Past Day. — ^Worth wins at last. — Bitter 
Pangs. — ^The Scythe of Death. — Sheridan's Second Wife. — Debts of Ho- 
nour. — Drury Lane Burnt. — ^The Owner's Serenity. — Misfortunes never come 
Singly. — ^The Whitbread Quarrel. — Ruined. — Undone and almost Forsaken. 
— ^The Dead Man Arrested. — ^The Stories fixed on Sheridan. — Extempore 
Wit and Inveterate Talkers. 




OOR Sheridan ! gambler, spendthrift, debtor, as thou 
wert, what is it that shakes from our hand the stone 
we would fling at thee ? Almost, we must confess 
it, thy very faults ; at least those qualities which seem to have 
been thy glory and thy ruin : which brought thee into tempta- 
tion ; to which, hadst thou been less brilliant, less bountiful, 
thou hadst never been drawn. What is it that disarms us when 
we review thy life, and wrings from us a tear when we should 
utter a reproach ? Thy punishment ; that bitter, miserable end ; 
that long battling with poverty, debt, disease, all brought on by 
thyself; that abandonment in the hour of need, more bitter 
than them all ; that awakening to the terrible truth of the hoi- 



Sheridan a Dunce, 345 

lowness of man and rottenness of the world ! — surely this is 
enough : surely we may hope that a pardon followed. But now 
let us view thee in thy upward flight — the genius, the wit, the 
monarch of mind. 

This great man, this wonderful genius, this eloquent senator, 
this most applauded dramatist was — hear it, oh, ye boys ! and 
fling it triumphantly in the faces of your pedagogues — Sheridan, 
at your age, was a dunce ! This wasjhe more extraordinary, 
inasmuch as his father, mother, and grandfather were all cele- 
brated for their quick mental powers. The last, in fact, Dr. 
Sheridan, was a successful and eminent schoolmaster, the inti- 
mate friend of Dean Swift, and an author. He was an Irish- 
man and a wit, and would seem to have been a Jacobite to 
boot, for he was deprived of a chaplaincy he held under Go- 
vernment, for preaching, on King George's birthday, a sermon 
having for its text ' Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.' 

Sheridan's mother, again — an eccentric, extraordinary woman 
— wrote novels and plays ; among the latter ' The Discovery,' 
which Garrick said was ' one of the best comedies he ever read ;' 
and Sheridan's father, Tom Sheridan, was famous, in connec- 
tion with the stage, where he was so long the rival of David 
Garrick. 

Born of such parents, in September, 1751, Richard Brinsley 
Sheridan was sent in due course to Harrow, where that famous 
old pedant. Dr. Parr, was at that time one of the masters. The 
Doctor has himself described the lazy boy, in whose face he 
discovered the latent genius, and whom he attempted to inspire 
^vith a love of Greek verbs and Latin verses, by making him 
ashamed of his ignorance. But Richard preferred English 
verses and no verbs, and the Doctor failed. He did not, even 
at that period, cultivate elocution, of which his father was so 
good a master ; though Dr. Parr remembered one of his sisters, 
on a visit to Harrow, reciting, in accordance with her father's 
teaching, the well-known lines — 

• None but the brave, 
None but the brave, 
None but the brave deserve the fair. 

But the real mind of the boy who would not be a scholar showed 



34^ Boyish Dreams of Literary Fame, 

itself early enough. He had only just left Harrow, when he 
began to display his literary abilities. He had formed at school 
the intimate acquaintance of Halhed, afterwards a distinguished 
Indianist, a man of like tastes with himself; he had translated 
with him some of the poems of Theocritus. The two boys 
had revelled together in boyish dreams of literary fame — ah, 
those boyish dreams ! so often our noblest — so seldom realized. 
So often, alas ! the aspirations to which we can look back as 
our purest and best, and which make us bitterly regret that 
they were but dreams. And now, when young Halhed went to 
Oxford, and young Sheridan to join his family at Bath, they 
continued these ambitious projects for a time, and laid out their 
fancy at full usury over many a work destined never to see the 
fingers of the printer's devil. Among these was a farce, or rather 
burlesque, which shows immense promise, and which, oddly 
enough, resem.bles in its cast the famous ' Critic,' which followed 
it later. It was called ' Jupiter,' and turned chiefly on the story 
of Ixion — 

' Embracing cloud, Ixion like, ' 

the lover of Juno, who caught a cold instead of the Queen of 
Heaven ; and who, according to the classical legend, tortured 
for ever on a wheel, was in this production to be condemned 
for ever to trundle the machine of a ^ needy knife-grinder,' 
amid a grand musical chorus of * razors, scissors, and pen- 
knives to grind !' This piece was amusing enough, and clever 
enough, though it betrayed repeatedly the youthfulness of its 
authors ; but less so their next attempt, a weekly periodical, to 
be called ^ Hernan's Miscellany,' of which Sheridan wrote, or 
was to write, pretty nearly the whole. None but the first num- 
ber was ever completed, and perhaps we need not regret that 
no more followed it ; but it is touching to see these two young 
men, both feeling their powers, confident in them, and sunning 
their halcyon's wings in the happy belief that they were those 
of the eagle, longing eagerly, earnestly, for the few poor guineas 
that they hoped from their work. Halhed, indeed, wrote dili- 
gently, but his colleague was not true to the contract, and 
•though the hope of gold stimulated him — for he was poor 



Sheridan in Love. 347 

enough — from time to time to a great effort, he was always ^be- 
ginning/ and never completing. 

The only real product of these united labours was a volume 
of Epistles in verse from the Greek of a poor writer of late age, 
Aristaenetus. This volume, which does little credit to either of 
its parents, was positively printed and published in 1770, but 
the rich harvest of fame and shillings^ which they expected from 
it was never gathered in. Yet the book excited some little no- 
tice. The incognito of its authors induced some critics to palm 
it even on such a man as Dr. Johnson ; others praised j others 
sneered at it. In the young men it raised hopes, only to dash 
them ; but its failure was not so utter as to put the idea of lite- 
rary success entirely out of their heads, nor its success sufficient 
to induce them to rush recklessly into print, and thus strangle 
their fame in its cradle. Let it fail, was Richard Sheridan's 
thought ] he had now a far more engrossing ambition. In a 
word, he was in love. 

Yes, he was in love for a time — only for a time, and not 
truly. But, be it remembered, Sheridan's evil days had not 
commenced. He sowed his wild oats late in life, — alack for 
him ! — and he never finished sowing them. His was not the 
viciousness of nature, but the corruption of success. ' In all 
time of wealth, good Lord deliver us !' What prayer can wild, 
unrestrained, unheeding Genius utter with more fervency ? I 
own Genius is rarely in love. There is an egotism, almost a 
selfishness, about it, that will not stoop to such common wor- 
ship. Women know it, and often prefer the blunt, honest, 
common-place soldier to the wild erratic poet. Genius, grand 
as it is, is unsympathetic. It demands higher — the highest 
joys. Genius claims to be loved, but to love is too much to 
ask it. And yet at this time Sheridan was not a matured Ge- 
nius. When his development came, he cast off this very love 
for which he had fought, manoeuvred, struggled, and was un- 
faithful to the very wife whom he had nearly died to obtain. 

Miss Linley was one of a family who have been called ' a 
nest of nightingales.' Young ladies who practise elaborate 
pieces and sing simple ballads in the voice of a white mouse, 
know the name of Linley well. For ages the Linleys have been 



34^ -^ Nest of Nightingales. 

the bards of England— composers, musicians, singers, always 
popular, always English. Sheridan's love was one of the most 
renowned of the family, but the ^Maid of Bath,' as she was 
called, was as celebrated for her beauty as for the magnificence 
of her voice. When Sheridan first knew her, she was only six- 
teen years old — very beautiful, clever, and modest. She was a 
singer by profession, living at Bath, as Sheridan, only three 
years older than herself, also was, but attending concerts, ora- 
torios, and so forth, in other places, especially at Oxford. Her 
adorers were legion ; and the Oxford boys especially — always 
in love as they are — ^were among them. Halhed was among 
these last, and in the innocence of his heart confided his pas- 
sion to his friend Dick Sheridan. At sixteen the young beauty 
began her conquests. A rich old Wiltshire squire, with a fine 
heart, as golden as his guineas, offered to or for her, and was 
readily accepted. But ^ Cecilia,' as she was always called, could not 
sacrifice herself on the altar of duty, and she privately told him 
that though she honoured and esteemed, she could never love 
him. The old gentleman proved his worth. Did he storm ? 
did he hold her to her engagement ? did he shackle himself 
with a young wife, who would only learn to hate him for his 
pertinacity ? Not a bit of it. He acted with a generosity which 
should be held up as a model to all old gentlemen who are wild 
enough to fall in love with girls of sixteen. He knew Mr. 
Linley, who was delighted with the match, would be furious if 
it were broken off. He offered to take on himself all the blame 
of the breach, and, to satisfy the angry parent, settled ;^i,ooo 
on the daughter. The offer was accepted, and the trial for 
breach of promise with which the pere Linley had threatened 
Mr. Long, was of course withheld. Mr. Long afterwards pre- 
sented Mrs. Sheridan with ;^3,ooo. 

The ^ Maid of Bath' was now an heiress as weir as a fasci- 
nating beauty, but her face and her voice were the chief en- 
chantments with her ardent and youthful adorers. The Sheri- 
dans had settled in Mead Street, in that town which is celebrated 
for its gambling, its scandal, and its unhealthy situation at the 
bottom of a natural basin. Well might the Romans build 
their baths there ; it will take more water than even Bath sup- 



The Maid of Bath. 349 

plies to wash out its follies and iniquities. It certainly is strange 
how washing and cards go together. One would fancy there 
were no baths in Eden, for wherever there are baths, there we 
find idleness and all its attendant vices. 

The Linleys were soon intimate with the Sheridans, and the 
Maid of Bath added to her adorers both Richard and his elder 
brother Charles ; only, just as at Harrow every one thought 
Richard a dunce and he disappointed them ; so at Bath no one 
thought Richard would fall in love, and he did disappoint them 
— none more so than Charles, his Brother, and Halhed, his 
bosom friend. As for the latter, he was almost mad in his de- 
votion, and certainly extravagant in his expressions. He de- 
scribed his passion by a clever, but rather disagreeable simile, 
which Sheridan, who was a most disgraceful plagiarist, though 
he had no need to be so, afterwards adopted as his own. 'Just 
as the Egyptian pharmacists/ wrote Halhed, in a Latin letter, 
in which he described the power of Miss Linley's voice over 
his spirit, ' were wont, in embalming a dead body to draw the 
brain out through the ears with a crooked hook, this nightin- 
gale has drawn out through mine ears not my brain only, but 
my heart also.' 

Then among other of her devotees were Norris, the singer, 
and Mr. Watts, a rich gentleman-commoner, who had also met 
her at Oxford. Surely with such and other rivals, the chances 
of the quiet, unpretending, undemonstrative boy of nineteen 
were small. But no, Miss Linley was foolish enough to be cap- 
tivated by genius, and charmed by such poems as the quiet 
boy wrote to her, of which this is, perhaps, one of the prettiest : 

• Dry that tear, my gentlest love ; 
Be hush'd that stmggHng sigh, 
Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove 

More fix'd, more true than I. 
Hush'd be that sigh, be dry that tear ; 
Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear : 
Dry be that tear. 

' Ask' St thou how long my love will stay, 
When all that's new is past ? 
How long, ah Delia, can I say 
How long my hfe will last ? 
Dry be that tear, be hush'd that sigh, 
At least I'll love thee till I die : 
Hush'd be that sigh. 



3SO Sheridmi^s Elopement with ' Cecilia^ 

• And does that thought affect thee too, 
The thought of Sylvio's death, 
That he who only breath'd for vou, 

Must yield that faithful breath? 
Hush'd be that sigh, be dry that tear, 
Nor let us lose our Heaven here : 
Be dry that tear.' 

The many adorers had not the remotest suspicion of this de- 
votion, and ^gave her' to this, that, or the other ehgible per- 
sonage ; but the villanous conduct of a scoundrel soon brought 
the matter to a crisis. The whole story was as romantic as it 
could be. In a three-volume novel, critics, always so just and 
acute in their judgment, would call it far-fetched, improbable^ 
unnatural ; in short, anything but what should be the plot of 
the pure ' domestic English story.' Yet, here it is with almost 
dramatic effect, the simple tale of what really befel one of our 
most celebrated men. 

Yes, to complete the fiction-like aspect of the affair, there 
was even a ^captain' in the matter— as good a villain as ever 
shone in short hose and cut doublet at the ' Strand' or ^Vic- 
toria.' Captain Matthews was a married man, and a very 
naughty one. He was an intimate friend of the Linleys, and 
wanted to push his intimacy too far. In short, ' not to put 
too fine a point on it' (too fine a point is precisely what never 
is put), he attempted to seduce the pretty, innocent girl, and 
not dismayed at one failure, went on again and again, ' Ce- 
cilia,' knowing the temper of Linley p^re, was afraid to expose 
him to her father, and with a course, which we of the present 
day cannot but think strange, if nothing more, disclosed the 
attempts of her persecutor to no other than her own lover^ 
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 

Strange want of delicacy, undoubtedly, and yet we can 
excuse the poor songstress, with a father who sought only to 
make money out of her talents, and no other relations to 
confide in. But Richard Brinsley, long her lover, now resolved 
to be both her protector and her husband. He persuaded her 
to fly to France, under cover of entering a convent. He in- 
duced his sister to lend him money out of that provided for 
the housekeeping at home, hired a post-chaise, and sent a se- 
dan-chair to her father's house in the Crescent to convey her 



His Duel with Captain Matthews, 35 1 

to it, and wafted her off to town. Thence, after a few adroit 
lies on the part of Sheridan, they sailed to Dunkirk ; and there 
he persuaded her to become his wife. She consented, and 
they were knotted together by an obHging priest accustomed 
to these runaway matches from la perfide Albion, 

The irate parent, Linley, followed, recaptured his daughter, 
and brought her back to England. Meanwhile, the elopement 
excited great agitation in the good city of Bath, and among, 
others, the villain of the story, the gallant Captain Matthews, 
posted Richard Brinsley as ^ a scoundrel and a liar,' the then 
polite method of expressing disgust. Home came Richard in 
the wake of Miss Linley, who rejoiced in the unromantic prae- 
nomen of ^ Betsy,' to her angry parent, and found matters had 
been running high in his short absence. A duel with Matthews 
seems to have been the natural consequence, and up Richard 
posted to London to fight it. Matthews played the craven — 
Sheridan the impetuous lover. They met, fought, seized one 
another's swords, wrestled, fell together, and wounded each 
other with the stumps of their rapiers in true Chevy-Chase 
fashion. Matthews, who had behaved in a cowardly manner 
in the first affair, sought to retrieve his honour by sending a 
second challenge. Again the rivals — well represented in ' The 
Rivals' afterwards produced — met at Kingsdown. Mr. Mat- 
thews drew ; Mr. Sheridan advanced on him at first : Mr. 
Matthews in turn advanced fast on Mr. Sheridan ; upon which 
he retreated, till he very suddenly ran in upon Mr. Matthews, 
laying himself exceedingly open, and endeavouring to get hold 
of Mr. Matthews' sword. Mr. Matthews received him at point,^ 
and, I believe, disengaged his sword from Mr. Sheridan's body, 
and gave him another wound. The same scene was now 
enacted, and a combat d routrance took place, ending in mutual 
wounds, and fortunately no one dead. 

Poor little Betsy was at Oxford when all this took place. On 
her return to Bath she heard something of it, and unconsciously 
revealed the secret of her private marriage, claiming the riglit 
of a wife to watch over her wounded husband. Then came 
the denouement. Old Tom Sheridan rejected his s.on. The 
angry Linley would have rejected his daughter, but for her 



352 Standards of Ridicule. 

honour. Richard was sent off into Essex, and in due time the 
couple were legally married in England. So ended a wild, 
romantic affair, in which Sheridan took a desperate, but not 
altogether honourable, part. But the dramatist got more out of 
it than a pretty wife. Like all true geniuses, he employed his 
own experience in the production of his works, and drew from 
the very event of his life some hints or toucTies to enliven the 
characters of his imagination. Surely the bravado and cowardice 
of Captain Matthews, who on the first meeting in the Park is 
described as finding all kinds of difficulties in the way of their 
fighting, objecting now to the ground as unlevel, now to the 
presence of a stranger, who turns out to be an officer, and very 
politely moves off when requested, who, in short, delays the 
event as long as possible, must have supplied the idea of Bob 
Acres; while the very conversations, of which we have no 
record, may have given him some of those hints of character 
which made the ' Rivals ' so successful. That play — his first — 
was written in 1774. It failed on its first appearance, owing to 
the bad acting of the part of Sir Lucius O'Trigger, by Mr. Lee ; 
but when another actor was substituted, the piece was at once 
successful, and acted with overflowing houses all over the 
country. How could it be otherwise ? It may have been ex- 
aggerated, far-fetched, unnatural, but such characters as Sir 
Anthony Absolute, Sir Lucius, Bob Acres, Lydia Languish, and 
most of all Mrs. Malaprop, so admirably conceived, and so 
carefully and ingeniously worked out, could not but be admired. 
They have become household words ; they are even now our 
standards of ridicule, and be they natural or not, these last 
eighty years have changed the world so little that Malaprops 
and Acreses may be found in the range of almost any man's 
experience, and in every class of society. 

Sheridan and his divine Betsy were now living in their own 
house, in that dull little place. Orchard Street, Portman Square, 
then an aristocratic neighbourhood, and he was diligent in the 
production of essays, pamphlets, and farces, many of which 
never saw the light, while others fell flat, or were not calculated 
to bring him any fame. What great authors have not expe- 
rienced the same disappointments ? What men would ever be 



Pain fid Family Estrangements. 353 

great if they allowed such checks to damp their energy, or were 
turned back by them from the course in which they feel that 
their power lies ? 

But his next work, the opera of ' The Duenna,' had a yet 
more signal success, and a run of no less than seventy-five 
nights at Covent Garden, which put Garrick at Drury Lane to 
his wit's end to know how to compete with it. Old Linley 
himself composed the music for it ; and to show how thus a 
family could hold the stage, Garrick actually played off the 
mother against the son, and revived Mrs. Sheridan's comedy of 
' The Discovery,' to compete with Richard Sheridan's ^ Duenna.' 

The first night 'The Rivals' was brought out at Bath came 
Sheridan's father, who, as we have seen, had refused to have 
anything to say to his son. It is related as an instance of 
Richard's filial affection, that during the representation he 
placed himself behind a side-scene opposite to the box in which 
his father and sisters sat, and gazed at them all the time. When 
he returned to his house and wife, he burst into tears, and de- 
clared that he felt it too bitter that he alone should have been 
forbidden to speak to those on whom he had been gazing all 
the night. 

During the following year this speculative man, who married 
on nothing but his brain, and had no capital, no wealthy friends, 
in short nothing whatever, suddenly appears in the most 
mysterious manner as a capitalist, and lays down his ;^i 0,000 
in the coolest and quietest manner. And for what? For a 
share in the purchase of Garrick's moiety of the patent of Drury 
Lane. The whole property was worth ;^7o,ooo ; Garrick sold 
his half for ;2^3 5,000, of which old Mr. Linley contributed 
;^ 10,000, Dr. Ford ^15,000, and penniless Sheridan the ba- 
lance. Where he got the money nobody knew, and apparently 
nobody asked. It was paid, and he entered at once on the busi- 
ness of proprietor of that old house, where so many a Roscius 
has strutted and declaimed with more or less fame ; so many a 
walking gentleman done his five shillings' worth of polite comedy, 
so many a tinsel king degraded the ' legitimate drama,' in the 
most illegitimate manner, and whose glories were extinguished, 
with the reign of Macready, when we were boys, nous atitres, 

23 



i 



354 Sttccess of the fa^nous * School for Scandal! 

The first piece he contributed to this stage was ' A Trip to 
Scarborough/ which was only a species of ' family edition of 
Vanbrugh's play, ^ The Relapse ;' but in 1777 he reached the 
acme of his fame, in ^ The School for Scandal.' v ' 

But alack and alas for these sensual days, when it is too 
much trouble to think, and people go to the play, if they go at 
all, to feast their eyes and ears, not their minds; can any 
sensible person believe that if ^ The School for Scandal,' teeming 
as it does with wit, satire, and character, finer and truer than in 
any play produced since the days of Ben Jonson, Massinger, 
and Marlowe, were set on the boards of the Haymarket at this 
day, as a new piece by an author of no very high celebrity, it 
would draw away a single admirer from the flummery in Oxford 
Street, the squeaking at Covent Garden, or the broad, exagge- 
rated farce at the Adelphi or Olympic ? No : it may still have 
its place on the London stage when well acted, but it owes that 
to its ancient celebrity, and it can never compete with the 
tinsel and tailoring which alone can make even Shakspeare go 
down with a modern audience. 

In those days of Garrick, on the other hand, those glorious 
days of true histrionic art, high and low were not ashamed to 
throng Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and make the appear- 
ance of a new play the great event of the season. Hundreds 
were turned away from the doors, when ^ The School for Scandal' 
was acted, and those who were fortunate enough to get in made 
the piece the subject of conversation in society for many a night, 
passing keen comment on every scene, every line, every word 
alm_ost, and using their minds as we now use our eyes. 

This brilliant play, the earliest idea of which was derived 
from its author's experience of the gossip of that kettle of 
scandal and backbiting, Bath, where, if no other commandment 
were ever broken, the constant breach of the ninth would suffice 
to put it on a level with certain condemned cities we have some- 
where read of, won for Sheridan a reputation of which he at once : 
felt the value, and made his purchase of a share in the property 5 
of Old Drury for the time being, a successful speculation. It 
produced a result which his good heart perhaps valued even 
more than the guineas which now flowed in; it induced his 



I 



opinions of Sheridan and his Influence, 355 

father, who had long been at war with him, to seek a recon- 
ciUation, and the elder Sheridan actually became manager of 
the theatre of which his son was part proprietor. 

Old Tom Sheridan had always been a proud man, and when 
once he was offended, was hard to bring round again. His 
quarrel with Johnson was an instance of this. In 1762 the 
Doctor, hearing they had given Sheridan a pension of two 
hundred a year, exclaimed, *What have they given hi7n a 
pension ? then it is time for me tg^ give up mine.' A * kind 
friend' took care to repeat the peevish exclamation, 'without 
adding what Johnson had said immediately afterwards, ' How- 
ever, I am glad that they have given Mr. Sheridan a pension, 
for he is a very good man.' The actor was disgusted ; and 
though Boswell interfered, declined to be reconciled. On one 
occasion he even rushed from a house at which he was to dine, 
when he heard that the great Samuel had been invited. The 
Doctor had little opinion of Sheridan's declamation. ^ Besides, 
sir,' said he, * what influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the 
language of this great country by his narrow exertions. Sir, it 
is burning a farthing candle at Dover to show light at Calais.' 
Still, when Garrick attacked his rival, Johnson nobly defended 
him. ' No sir,' he said, ' there is to be sure, in Sheridan, some- 
thing to reprehend, and everything to laugh at ; but, sir, he is 
not a bad man. No, sir,' were mankind to be divided into 
good and bad, he would stand considerably within the ranks of 
the good.' 

However, the greatest bully of his age (and the kindest- 
hearted man) thought very differently of the son. Richard 
Brinsley had written a prologue to Savage's play of ^ Sir Thomas 
Overbury ' — 

' Ill-fated Savage, at whose birth was giv'n 
No parent but the Musej> no friend but Heav'n ;' 

and in this had paid an elegant compliment to the great lexi- 
cographer, winding up with these lines : — 

*So pleads the tale that gives to future times 
The son's misfortunes and the parent's crimes ; 
There shall his fame, if own'd to-night, survive, 
FLx'd by the hand that bids our language live — ' 

23—2 



3S6 The Litej'ary Club. 

referring at once to Johnson's life of his friend Savage and to 
his great Dictionary. It was Savage, every one remembers, 
with whom Johnson in his days of starvation was wont to walk 
the streets all night, neither of them being able to pay for a 
lodging, and with whom, walking one night round and round 
St. James's Square, he kept up his own and his companion's 
spirits by inveighing against the minister and declaring that 
they would ' stand by their country.' 

Doubtless the Doctor felt as much pleasure at the meed 
awarded to his old companion in misery as at the high com- 
pliment to himself. Anyhow he pronounced that Sheridan 
' had written the two best comedies of his age,' and therefore 
proposed him as a member of the Literary Club. 

This celebrated gathering of wit and whimsicality, founded 
by Johnson himself in conjunction with Sir J. Pvcynolds, was 
the Helicon of London Letters, and the temple which the 
greatest talker of his age had built for himself, and in which 
he took care to be duly worshipped. It met at the Turk's 
Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, every Friday ; and from seven 
in the evening to almost any hour of night was the scene of 
such talk, mainly on literature and learning, as has never been 
heard since in this country. It consisted at this period of 
twenty-six members, and there is scarcely one among them 
whose name is not known to-day as well as any in the history 
of our literature. Besides the high priests, Reynolds and 
Johnson, there came Edmund Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and many 
another of less note, to represent the senate : Goldsmith, Gib- 
bon, Adam Smith, Malone, Dr. Burney, Percy, Nugent, Sir 
William Jones, three Irish bishops, and a host of others, 
crowded in from the ranks of learning and literature. Garrick 
and George Colman found here an indulgent audience ; and 
the light portion of the company comprised such men as Top- 
ham Beauclerk, Bennet Langton, Vesey, and a dozen of lords 
and baronets. In short, they were picked men, and if their 
conversation was not always witty, it was because they had all 
wit and frightened one another. 

Among them the bullying Doctor rolled in majestic grum- 
piness ; scolded, dogmatized, contradicted, pished and pshawed. 



*a 



J 



Anecdote of Garrick's Admittance, 357 

and made himself generally disagreeable ; yet, hail the omen, 
Intellect ! such was the force, such the fame of his mind, that 
the more he snorted, the more they adored him — the more he 
bullied, the more humbly they knocked under. He was quite 
*• His Majesty ' at the Turk's Head, and the courtiers waited for 
his coming with anxiety, and talked of him till he came in the 
same manner as the lacqueys in the anteroom of a crowned 
monarch. Boswell, who, by the way, was also a member — of 
course he was, or how should we have had the great man's con- 
versations handed down to us ? — was sure to keep them up to 
the proper mark of adulation if they ever flagged in it, and was as 
servile in his admiration in the Doctor's absence as when he 
was there to call him a fool for his pains. 

Thus, on one occasion while ^ King Johnson ' tarried, the 
courtiers were discussing his journey to the Hebrides and his 
coming away * willing to believe the second sight' Some of 
them smiled at this, but Bozzy was down on them with more 
than usual servility. * He is only willi?tg to believe,' he ex- 
claimed. ^ I do believe. The evidence is enough for me, 
though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart bottle 
will fill a pint bottle. I am filled with belief.' — * Are you?' 
said Colman, slily ; ^ then cork it up.' 

As a specimen of Johnson's pride in his own club, which 
always remained extremely exclusive, we have what he said of 
Garrick, who, before he was elected, carelessly told Reynolds 
he liked the club, and thought ^ he would be of them.' 

' He'll be of us P roared the Doctor indignantly, on hearing 
of this. ^ How does he know we will perjnit him ? The first 
duke in England has no right to hold such language !' 

It can easily be imagined that when * His Majesty' expressed 
his approval of Richard Brinsley, then a young man of eight- 
and-twenty, there was no one who ventured to blackball him, 
and so Sheridan was duly elected. 

The fame of ' The School for Scandal ' was a substantial one 
for Richard Brinsley, and in the following year he extended his 
speculation by buying the other moiety of Drury Lane. This 
theatre, which took its name from the old Cockpit Theatre in 
Drury Lane, where Killigrew acted in the days of Charles II., 



3 5 8 Origin of ^ The Rejected A ddi^esses, ' 

is famous for the number of times it has been rebuilt. The first 
house had been destroyed in 1674; and the one in which 
Garrick acted was built by Sir Christopher Wren and opened 
with a prologue by Dryden. In 1793 this was rebuilt. In 
1869 it was burnt to the ground ; and on its re-opening the 
Committee advertised a prize for a prologue, which was sup- 
posed to be tried for by all the poets and poetasters then in 
England."^ Sheridan adding afterwards a condition that he 
wanted an address without a Phoenix in it. Horace Smith and 
his brother seized the opportunity to parody the style of the 
most celebrated in their delightful ' Rejected Addresses.' Drury 
Lane has always been grand in its prologue, for besides Dryden 
and Byron, it could boast of Sam. Johnson, who wrote the 
address when Garrick opened the theatre in 1747. No theatre 
ever had more great names connected with its history. 

It was in 1778, after the purchase of the other moiety of this 
property, that Sheridan set on its boards * The Critic' Though 
this was denounced as itself as complete a plagiarism as any Sir 
Fretful Plagiary could make, and though undoubtedly the idea 
of it was borrowed, its wit, so truly Sheridanian, and its com- 
plete characters, enhanced its author's fame, in spite of the dis- 
appointment of those who expected higher things from the 
writer of * The School for Scandal.' Whether Sheridan would 
have gone on improving, had he remained true to the drama, 
' The Critic' leaves us in doubt. But he was a man of higher 
;imbition. Step by step, unexpectedly, and a^pparently unpre- 
pared, he had taken by storm the out-works of the citadel he 
was determined to capture, and he seems to have cared little to 
garrison these minor fortresses. He had carried off from among 
a dozen suitors a wife of such beauty that Walpole thus writes 
of her in 1773 :— 

* I was at the ball last night, and have only been at the opera, 
where I was infinitely struck with the Carrara, who is the pret- 
tiest creature upon earth. Mrs. Hartley I find still handsomer, 
and Miss Linley is to be .the superlative degree. The king 
admires the last, and ogles her as much as he dares in so holy 

* None of the addresses sent in having given satisfaction, Lord Byron was 
requested to write one, which he did. 



New Flights — Political A mbition. 359 

a^ place as an oratorio, and at so devout a service as Alexander's 
Feast.* 

Yet Sheridan did not prize his lovely wife as he should have 
done, when he had once obtained her. Again he had struck 
boldly into the drama, and in four years had achieved that fame 
as a play-writer to which even Johnson could testify so hand- 
somely. He now quitted this, and with the same innate power 
— the same consciousness of success — the same readiness of 
genius — took a higher, far more brilliant flight than ever. Yet 
had he garrisoned the forts he captured, he would have been a 
better, happier, and more prosperous man. Had he been true 
to the Maid of Bath, his character would not have degenerated 
as it did. Had he kept up his connection with the drama, he 
would not have lost so largely by his speculation in Drury Lane. 
His genius became his temptation, and he hurried on to triumph 
and to fall. 

Public praise is a syren which the young sailor through life 
cannot resist. Political life is a fine aim, even when its seeker 
starts vv^ithout a shred of real patriotism to conceal his personal 
ambition. No young man of any character can think, without 
a thrill of rapture, on the glory of having his name — now ob- 
scure — written in capitals on the page of his country's history. 
A true patriot cares nothing for fame ; a really great man is 
content to die nameless, if his acts may but survive him. She- 
ridan was not really great, and it may be doubted if he had any 
sincerity in his political views. But the period favoured the 
rise of young men of genius. In former reigns a man could 
have little hope of political influence without being first a 
courtier ; but by this time liberalism had made giant strides. 
The leaven of revolutionary ideas, which had leavened the 
whole lump in France, was still working quietly and less pas- 
sionately in this country, and being less repressed, displayed it- 
self in the last quarter of the eighteenth century in the form of 
a strong and brilliant opposition. It was to this that the young 
men of ambition attached themselves, rallying under the stan- 
dard of Charles James Fox, since it was there only that their 
talents were sufficient to recommend tliem. 

To this party, Sheridan, laughing in his sleeve at the extra- 



360 The Gaming Mania, 

vagance of their demands — so that when they clamoured for a 
' parliament once a year, or oftener if need be,' he pronounced 
himself an ^ Oftener-if-need-be' man — was introduced, when his 
fame as a literary man had brought him into contact with some 
of its hangers on. Fox, after his first interview with him, af- 
firmed that he had always thought Hare and Charles Townsend 
the wittiest men he had ever met, but that Sheridan surpassed 
them both ; and Sheridan was equally pleased with ^ the Man 
of the People.' 

The first step to this political position was to become a mem- 
ber of a certain club, where its leaders gambled away their 
money, and drank away their minds — to wit, Brookes'. Pretty 
boys, indeed, were these great Whig patriots when turned loose 
in these precincts. The tables were for stakes of twenty or 
fifty guineas, but soon ran up to hundreds. What did it matter 
to Charles James Fox, to the Man of the People, whether he 
lost five, seven, or ten thousand of a night, when the one-half 
came out of his father's, the other out of Hebrew, pockets — 
the sleek, thick-lipped owners of which thronged his Jerusalem 
chamber, as he called his back sitting-room, only too^ glad to 

* oblige' him to a^ny amount ? The rage for gaming at this 
pandemonium may be understood from a rule of the club, wl^ich 
it was found necessary to make to interdict it in the eating-rohm, 
but to which was added the truly British exception, whi^li 
allowed two members of Parliament in those days, or two 

* gentlemen' of any kind, to toss up for what they had or- 
dered. 

This charming resort of the dissipated was originally esta- 
blished in Pall Mall in 1764, and the manager was that same 
Almack who afterwards opened a lady's club in the rooms now 
called Willis's, in King Street, St. James's ; who also owned the 
famous Thatched House, and whom Gilly Williams described 
as having a ' Scotch face, in a bag-wig,' waiting on the ladies at 
supper. In 1 7 78 Brookes — a wine-merchant and money-lender, 
whom Tickell, in his famous ' Epistle from the Hon. Charles 
Fox, partridge-shooting, to the Hon. John Townsend, cruising,' 
describes in these lines : — 



A Imack's — Brookes', 361 

* And know I've bought the best champagne from Brookes, 
From hberal Brookes, whose speculative skill 
Is hasty credit, and a distant bill : 
Who, nurs'd in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade ; 
Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid — ' 

built and opened the present club-house in St. James's Street, 
and thither the members of Almack'^s migrated. Brookes' 
speculative skill, however, did not make him a rich man, and 
the ^ gentlemen' he dealt with wer^e^perhaps too gentlemanly to 
pay him. He died poor in 1782. Almack's at first consisted 
of twenty-seven members, one of whom was C. J. Fox. Gib- 
bon, the historian, was actually a member of it, and says that 
in spite of the rage for play, he found the society there rational 
and entertaining. Sir Joshua Reynolds wanted to be a member 
of it too. ' You see,' says Topham Beauclerk thereupon, 
* what noble ambition will make a man attempt. That den is 
not yet opened,' &c. 

Brookes', however, was far more celebrated, and besides Fox, 
Reynolds, and Gibbon, there were here to be found Horace 
Walpole, David Hume, Burke, Selwyn, and Garrick. It would 
be curious to discover how much religion, how much morality, 
and how much vanity there were among the set. The first two 
would require a microscope to examine, the last an ocean to 
contain it. But let Tickell describe its inmates : — 

' Soon as to Brookes's thence thy footsteps bend 
What gratulations thy approach attend ! 
See Gibbon rap his box — auspicious sign, 
That classic compliment and wit combine ; 
See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise, 
And friendship give what cruel health denies ; 
* * * 

Of wit, of taste, of fancy we'll debate, 
If Sheridan for once be not too late. 
But scarce a thought on politics we'll spare 
Unless on Polish politics with Hare. 
Good-natured Devon ! oft shall there appear 
The cool complacence of thy friendly sneer ; 
Oft shall Fitzpatrick's wit, and Stanhope's ease, 
And Burgoyne's manly sense combine to please. 

To show how high gaming ran in this assembly of wits, even 
so early at 1772, there is a memorandum in the books, stating 
that Mr. Thynne retired fi-om the chib in disgust, because he 



362 Black-Balled, 

had only won ;^i 2,000 in two months. The principal games 
at this period were quinze and faro. 

Into this eligible club Richard Sheridan, who ten years 
before had been agreeing with Halhed on the bliss of making 
a couple of hundred pounds by their literary exertions, now 
essayed to enter as a member ; but in vain. One black-ball 
sufficed to nullify his election, and that one was dropped in by 
George Selwyn, who, with degrading littleness, would not have 
the son of an actor among them. Again and again he made 
the attempt ; again and again Selwyn foiled him ; and it was 
not till 1780 that he succeeded. The Prince of Wales was 
then his devoted friend, and was determined he should be ad- 
mitted into the club. The elections at that time took place 
between eleven at night and one o'clock in the morning, and 
the ^ greatest gentleman in Europe ' took care to be in the hall 
when the ballot began. Selwyn came down as usual, bent on 
triumph. The prince called him to him. There was nothing 
for it \ Selwyn was forced to obey. The prince walked him up 
and down the hall, engaging him in an apparently most im- 
portant conversation. George Selwyn answered him question 
after question, and m.ade desperate attempts to slip away. The 
other George had always something more to say to him. The 
long finger of the clock went round, and Selwyn' s long white 
fingers were itching for the black ball. The prince was only 
more and more interested, the wit only more and more ab 
stracted. Never was the young George more lively, or the 
other more silent. But it was all in vain. The finger of the 
clock went round and round, and at last the members came 
out noisily from the balloting-room, and the smiling faces of 
the prince's friends showed to the unhappy Selwyn that his 
enemy had been elected. 

So, at least, runs one story. The other, told by Sir Natha- 
niel Wraxall, is perhaps more probable. It appears that the 
Earl of Besborough was no less opposed to his election than 
George Selwyn, and these two individuals agreed at any cost 
of comfort to be always at the club at the time of the ballot to 
throw in their black balls. On the night of his success. Lord 
Besborough was there as usual, and Selwyn was at his rooms 



( 



Two Versions of the Election Trick, 363 

in Cleveland Row, preparing to come to the club. Suddenly a 
chairman rushed into Brookes' with an important note for my 
lord, who, on tearing it open, found to his horror that it was 
from his daughter-in-law, Lady Duncannon, announcing that 
his house in Cavendish Square was on fire, and imploring him 
to come immediately. Feeling confident that his fellow con- 
spirator would be true to his post, the earl set off at once. 
But almost the same moment ^Iwyn received a message in- 
forming him that his adopted daughter, of whom he was very 
fond, was seized with an alarming illness. The ground was 
cleared ; and by the time the earl returned, having, it is need- 
less to say, found his house in a perfect state of security, and 
was joined by Selwyn, whose daughter had never been better 
in her life, the actor's son was elected, and the conspirators 
found they had been duped. 

But it is far easier in this country to get into that House, 
where one has to represent the interests of thousands, and take 
a share in the government of a nation, than to be admitted to 
a club v/here one has but to lounge, to gamble, and to eat 
dinner ; and Sheridan was elected for the town of Stafford with 
probably little more artifice than the old and stale one of put- 
ting five-pound notes under voters' glasses, or paying thirty 
pounds for a home-cured ham. Whether he bribed or not, a 
petition was presented against his election, almost as a matter 
of course in those days, and his maiden speech was made in 
defence of the good burgesses of that quiet little county-town. 
After making this speech, which was listened to in silence on 
account of his reputation as a dramatic author, but which does 
not appear to have been very wonderful, he rushed up to the 
gallery, and eagerly asked his friend Woodfall what he thought 
of it. That candid man shook his head, and told him oratory 
was not his forte. Sheridan leaned his head on his hand a 
moment, and then exclaimed with vehement emphasis, * It is 
in me, however, and, by Heaven ! it shall come out.' 

He spoke prophetically, yet not as the great man who de- 
termines to conquer difficulties, but rather as one who feels 
conscious of his own powers, and knows that they must show 
themselves sooner or later. Sheridan found himself labouring 



364 Leads a Double Life, 

under the same natural obstacles as Demosthenes — though in 
a less degree — a thick and disagreeable tone of voice ; but we 
do not find in the indolent but gifted Englishman that adiiiir- 
able perseverance, that conquering zeal, which enabled the 
Athenian to turn these very impediments to his own advantage. 
He did, indeed, prepare his speeches, and at times had fits of 
that same diligence which he had displayed in the preparation 
of * The School for Scandal ;' but his indolent, self-indulgent 
mode of life left him no time for such steady devotion to ora- 
tory as might have made him the finest speaker of his age, for 
perhaps his natural abilities were greater than those of Pitt, 
Fox, or even Burke, though his education was inferior to that 
of those two statesmen. 

From this time Sheridan's life had two phases — that of a 
politician, and that of a man of the world. With the former, 
we have nothing to do in such a memoir as this, and indeed it 
is difiicult to say whether it was in oratory, the drama, or wit 
that he gained the greatest celebrity. There is, however, some 
difference between the three capacities. On the mimic stage, 
and on the stage of the country, his fame rested on a very few 
grand outbursts — some matured, prepared, deliberated — others 
spontaneous. He left only three great comedies, and perhaps 
we may say only one really grand. In the same way he made 
only two great speeches, or perhaps we may say only one. 
His wit on the other hand — though that too is said to have 
been studied — was the constant accompaniment of his daily 
life, and Sheridan has not left two ox three celebrated bon-mots, 
but a hundred. 

But even in his political career his wit, which must then have 
been spontaneous, won him almost as much fame as his elo- 
quence, which he seems to have reserved for great occasions. 
He was the wit of the House. Wit, ridicule, satire, quiet, cool, 
and easy sneers, always made in good temper, and always 
therefore the more bitter, were his weapons, and they struck' 
'with unerring accuracy. At that time — ^nor at that time only — 
the ^ Den of Thieves,' as Cobbett called our senate, was a 
cockpit as vulgar and personal as the present Congres s of the 
United States. Party-spirit meant more than it has ever doiTf 



Pitfs Vulgar Attack. 365 

since, and scarcely less than it had meant when the throne 
. itself was the stake for which parties played some forty years 
before. There was, in fact a substantial personal centre for 
each side. The one party rallied round a respectable but 
maniac monarch, whose mental afflictions took the most dis- 
tressing form, the other round his gay, handsome, dissolute — 
nay disgusting — son, at once his rival and his heir. The spirit 
of each party was therefore person^, and their attacks on one 
another were more personal than anything we can imagine in 
the present day in so respectably ridiculous a conclave as 
the House of Commons. It was little for one honourable gen- 
tleman to give another honourable gentleman the lie direct 
before the eyes of the country. The honourable gentlemen 
descended — or, as they thought, ascended — to the most vehe- 
ment invective, and such was at times the torrent of personal 
abuse which parties heaped on one another, while good-natured 

^ John Bull looked on and smiled at his rulers, that, as in the 
Unitei^States of to-day, a debate was often the prelude to a 

^ue l. PitFand Fox, Tierney, Adam, FuUarton, Lord George 
Germain, Lord Shelburne, and Governor Johnstone, all ' vindi- 
cated their honour,' as the phrase went, by ' coffee and pistols 
for four.' If Sheridan had not to repeat the Bob Acres scene 
with Captain Matthews, it was only because his wonderful good 
humour could put up with a great deal that others thought 
could only be expiated by a hole in the waistcoat. 

In the administration of the Marquis of Rockingham the 
dramatist enjoyed the pleasures of office for less than a year 
as one of the Under Secretaries of State in 1782. In the 
next year we find him making a happy retort on Pitt, who had 
somewhat vulgarly alluded to his being a dramatic author. It 
was on the American question, perhaps the bitterest that ever 
called forth the acrimony of parties in the House. Sheridan, 
from boyhood, had been taunted with being the son of an 

' actor. One can hardly credit this fact, just after Garrick had 
raised the profession of an actor to so great an eminence in the 
social scale. He had been called ^the player boy' at school^ 
and his election at Brookes' had been opposed on the same 
grounds. It was evidently his bitterest point, and Pitt probably 



366 Sheridan's Happy Retort 

knew tHis when, in replying to a speech, of the ex-dramatist's 
ne said that ' no man admired more than he did the abihties of 
that right honourable gentleman, the elegant sallies of his 
thought, the gay effusions of his fancy, his dramatic turns, and 
his epigrammatic point; and if they were reserved for \h^ pro- 
per stage, they would, no doubt, receive what the hon. gentle- 
man's abilities always did receive, the plaudits of the audience; 
and it v/ould be his fortune sui plc^isu gaudere theatri. But this 
was not the proper scene for the exhibition of those elegancies.' 
This was vulgar in Pitt, and probably every one felt so. But 
Sheridan rose, cool and collected, and quietly replied :— 

' On the particular sort of personality which' the right hon. 
gendeman has thought proper to make use of, I need not make 
any comment. The propriety, the taste, the gentlemanly point 
of it, n-ict have been obvious to the House. But let me 
assure the right hon. gentleman that I do nov/, and will at any 
time he chooses to repeat this sort of allusion, meet it with the 
most sincere good humour. Nay, I will say more : flattered 
and encouraged by the right hon. gentleman's panegyric on my 
talents, if ever I again engage in the compositions he alludes to, 
. I may be tempted to an act of presumption— to attempt an 
improvement on one of Ben Jonson's best characters, the 
character of the Angry Boy, in the "Alchemist." ' 

The fury of Pitt, contrasted with the coolness of the man he 
had so shamefully attacked, made this sally irresistible, and 
from that time neither ' the angry boy ' him.3clf, nor any of his 
colleagues, were anxious to twit Sheridan on his dramatic 
pursuits. 

Pitt wanted ta lay a tax on every horse that started in a 
race. Lord Surry, a ttirfish individual of the day, proposed one 
of five pounds on the winner. Sheridan, rising, told his lordship 
that the next time he visited Newmarket he would probably be 
greeted with the line : — 

'Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold .' 

Lord Rolie, the butt of the Opposition, who had attacked 
him in the famous satire, 'The Rolliad,' so popular that it went 
through twenty-two editions in twenty-seven years, accused 



Grattan's Quip — Sheridan's Sallies. 367 

Sheridan of inflammatory speeches among the operatives of the 
northern counties on the cotton question. Sheridan retorted 
by saying that he believed Lord Rolle mast refer to ' Compo- 
sitions less prosaic, but more popular' (meaning the ^ RoUiad'), 
and thus successfully turned the laugh against him. 

It was Grattan, I think, who said, ' When I can't talk sense, 
I talk metaphor.' Sheridan often talked metaphor, though he 
sometimes mingled it with sense. His famous speech about 
the Begums of Oude is full of % but we have one or two 
instances before that. Thus on the Duke of Richmond's 
report about fortifications, he said, turning to the duke, that 
^ holding in his hand the report made by the Board of Officers, 
he complimented the noble president on his talents as an 
engineer^ which were strongly evinced in planning and construct- 
ing that very paper He has made it a contest of posts, 

and conducted his reasoning not less on principles of trigono- 
metry than of logic. There are certain assumptions thrown up, 
like advanced works, to keep the enemy at a distance from the 
principal object of debate; strong provisos protect and cover 
the flanks of his assertions, his very queries are his casemates,' 
and so on. 

When Lord Mulgrave said, on another occasion, that any 
man using his influence to obtain a vote for the crown ought to 
lose his head, Sheridan quietly remarked, that he was glad his 
lordship had said * ought to lose his head,' not would have lost 
it, for in that case the learned gentleman would not have had 
that evening ^ 2. face to have shown among us.' 

Such are a few of his well-remembered implies in the House ; 
but his fame as an orator rested on the splendid speeches 
which he made at the impeachment of Warren Hastings. The 
first of these was made in the House on the 7th of February, 
1787. The whole story of the corruption, extortions, "and 
cruelty of the worst of many bad rulers who have been imposed 
upon that unhappy nation of Hindostan, and who ignorant how 
\o par cere siihjectis^ have gone on in their unjust oppression, only 
rendering it the more dangerous by weak concessions, is too 
well known to need a recapitulation here. The worst feature 
in tlie whole of Hastings' misconduct was, perhaps, his treat- 



368 The Trial of Warren Hastings, 

ment of those unfortunate ladies whose money he coveted, 
the Begums of Oude. The Opposition was determined to 
make the governor-general's conduct a state question, but their 
charges had been received with little attention, till on this day 
Sheridan rose to denounce the cruel extortioner. He spoke 
for five hours and a half, and surpassed all he had ever said in 
eloquence. The subject was one to find sympathy in the 
hearts of Englishmen, who, though they beat their own wives, 
are always indignant at a man who dares to lay a little finger 
on those of anybody else. Then, too, the subj ect was Oriental : 
it might even be invested with something of romance and 
poetry ; the zenanah, sacred in the eyes of the oppressed 
natives, had been ruthlessly insulted, under a glaring Indian 
sun, amid the luxuriance of Indian foliage, these acts had been 
committed, &c. &c. It was a fertile theme for a poet ; and 
how little soever Sheridan cared for the Begums and their 
wrongs — and that he did care little appears from what he 
afterwards said of Hastings himself — he could evidently make 
a telling speech out of the theme, and he did so. Walpole 
says that he turned everybody's head. ^ One heard everybody 
in the street raving on the wonders of that speech ; for my 
part, I cannot believe it was so supernatural as they say.' He 
affirms that there must be a witchery in Mr. Sheridan, who had 
no diamonds — as Hastings had — to win favour with, and says 
that the Opposition may be fairly charged with sorcery. Burke 
declared the speech to be ' the most astonishing effort of 
eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any 
record or tradition.' Fox affirmed that ^ all he had ever heard, 
all he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into 
nothing, and vanished like vapour before the sun.' But these 
were partizans. Even Pitt acknowledged * that it surpassed all 
the eloquence of ancient and modern times, and possessed 
everything that genius or art could furnish to agitate and 
control the human mind.' One member confessed himself so 
unhinged by it, that he moved an adjournment, because he 
could not, in his then state of mind, give an unbiassed vote. 
But the highest testimony was that of Logan, the defender of 
Hastings. At the end of the first hour of the speech, he said 



Wonderful Effect of Sheridan's Eloquence. 369 

to a friend, * All this is declamatory assertion without proof.' 
Another hour's speaking, and he muttered, ' This is a most 
wonderful oration !' A third, and he confessed ' Mr. Hastings 
has acted very unjustifiably.' At the end of the fourth, he ex- 
claimed, ' Mr. Hastings is a most atrocious criminal.' And 
before the speaker had sat down, he vehemently protested that 
^ Of all monsters of iniquity, the most enormous is Warren 
Hastings.' r- 

Such in those days was the effect of eloquence ; an art which 
has been eschewed in the present House of Commons, and 
which our newspapers affect to think is much out of place in 
an assembly met for calm deliberation. Perhaps they are right ; 
but oh ! for the golden words of a Sheridan, a Fox, even a 
Pitt and Burke. 

It is said, though not proved, that on this same night of 
Sheridan's glory in the House of Commons^ his ^School for 
Scandal' was acted with 'rapturous applause' at Covent Gar- 
den, and his ^ Duenna' no less successfully at Drury Lane. 
What a pitch of glory for the dunce who had been shamed 
into learning Greek verbs at Harrow ! Surely Dr. Parr must 
then have confessed that a man can be great without the clas- 
sics — nay, without even a decent English education, for Sheri- 
dan knew comparatively little of history and literature,, certainly 
less than the men against whom he was pitted or whose powers 
he emulated. He has been known to say to his friends, when 
asked to take part with them on some important question, 
' You know I'm an ignoramus — instruct me and I'll do my 
best.' He had even to rub up his arithmetic when he thought 
he had some chance of being made Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer ; but, perhaps, many a statesman before and after him 
has done as much as that. 

No wonder that after such a speech in the House, the cele- 
brated trial which commenced in the beginning of the follow- 
ing year should have roused the attention of the whole nation. 
The proceedings opened in Westminster Hall, the noblest 
room in England, on the 13th of February, 1788. The Queen 
and four of her daughters were seated in the Duke of New- 
castle's box ; the Prince of Wales walked in at the head of a 

24 



370 The Supreme Effort. 

hundred and fifty peers of the realm. The spectacle was im- 
posing enough. But the trial proceeded slowly for some months, 
and it was not till the 3rd of June that Sheridan rose to make 
his second great speech on this subject. 

The excitement was then at its highest. Two-thirds of the 
peers with the peeresses and their daughters were present, and 
the whole of the vast hall was crowded to excess. The sun 
shone in brightly to light up the gloomy building, and the whole 
scene was splendid. Such was the enthusiasm that people paid 
fifty gumeas for a ticket to hear the first orator of his day, for 
such he then was. The actor's son felt the enlivening influence 
of a full audience. He had been long preparing for this mo- 
ment, and he threw into his speech all the theatrical effect of 
which he had studied much and inherited more. He spoke for 
many hours on the 3rd, sth, and 6th, and concluded with these 
words : 

* They (the House of Commons) exhort you by everything 
that calls sublimely upon the heart of man, by the majesty of 
that justice which this bold man has libelled, by the wide fame 
of your own tribunal, by the sacred pledges by which you swear 
in the solemn hour of decision, knowing that that decision will 
then bring you the highest reward that ever blessed the heart 
of man, the consciousness of having done the greatest act of 
mercy for the world that the earth has ever yet received from 
any hand but heaven ! — My Lords, I have done.' 

Sheridan's valet was very proud of his master's success, and 
as he had been to hear the speech, was asked what part he 
considered the finest. Plush replied by putting himself into his 
master's attitude, and imitating his voice admirably, solemnly 
uttering, ' My Lords, I have done !' He should have added 
the word ' nothing.' Sheridan's eloquence had no more effect 
than the clear proof of Hastings' guilt, and the impeachment, 
as usual, was but a troublesome subterfuge, to satisfy the Oppo- 
sition and dust the eyeballs of the country. 

Sheridan's great speech was made. The orator has concluded 
his oration ; fame was complete, and no more was wanted. 
Adieu, then, blue-books and parties, and come on the last grand 
profession of this man of many talents — that of the wit. That 



The Star Culminates. 371 

it was a profession there can be no doubt, for he lived on it, it 
was all his capital. He paid his bills in that coin alone : he 
paid his workmen, his actors, carpenters, builders with no more 
sterling metal ; with that ready tool he extracted loans from the 
very men who came to be paid ; that brilliant ornament main- 
tained his reputation in the senate, and his character in society. 
But wit without wisdom — the froth without the fluid — the capi- 
tal without the pillar — is but a poor fortune, a wretched substi- 
tute for real worth and honest utility. For a time men for- 
gave to Mr. Sheridan — extravagant and reckless as he was — what 
would long before have brought an honester, better, but less 
amusing man to a debtor's prison and the contempt of society ; 
but only for a time was this career possible. 

Sheridan has now reached the pinnacle of his fame, and. 
from this point we have to trace that decline which ended so 
awfully. 

Whilst we call him a dishonest man, we must not be sup- 
posed to imply that he was so in heart. It is pleaded for him 
that he tricked his creditors ' for the fun of the thing,! like a 
modern Robin Hood, and like that forester bold, he was 
mightily generous with other men's money. Deception is de- 
ception whether in sport or earnest, and Sheridan, no doubt, 
made it a very profitable employment. He had always a taste 
for the art of duping, and he had begun early in life — soon after 
leaving Harrow. He was spending a few days at Bristol, and 
wanted a pair of new boots, but could not afford to pay for 
them. Shortly before he left, he called on two bootmakers, and 
ordered of each a pair, promising payment on delivery. He 
fixed the morning of his departure for the tradesmen to send 
in their goods. When the first arrived he tried on the boots, 
complaining that that for the right foot pinched a little, and or- 
dered Crispin to take it back, stretch it, and bring it again at 
nine the next morning. The second arrived soon after, and 
this time it was the boot for the left foot which pinched. Same 
complaint ; same order given ; each had taken away only the 
pinching boot, and left the other behind. The same afternoon 
Sheridan left in his new boots for town, and when tlie two 
shoemakers called at nine the next day, each with a boot in his 

24 — 2 



3/2 A Shrewd but Graceless Oxonian. 

hand, we can imagine their disgust at finding how neatly they 
had been duped. 

Anecdotes of this kind swarm in every account of Richard 
Sheridan — many of them, perhaps, quite apocryphal, others ex- 
aggerated, or attributed to this noted trickster, but all tending 
to show how completely he was master of this high art. His 
ways of eluding creditors used to delight me, I remember, 
when an Oxford boy, and they are only paralleled by Oxford 
stories. One of these may not be generally known, and was 
worthy of Sheridan. Every Oxonian knows Hall, the boat- 
builder at Folly Bridge. Mrs. Hall was, in my time, proprie- 
tress of those dangerous skiffs and nutshell canoes which we 
young harebrains delighted to launch on the I sis. Some youth- 
ful Sheridanian had a long account with this elderly and bashful 
personage, who had applied in vain for her money, till, coming 
one day to his rooms, she announced her intention not to leave 
till the money was paid. ^ Very well, Mrs. Hall, then you must 
sit down and make yourself comfortable while I dress, for I am 
going out directly.' Mrs. H. sat down composedly, and with 
equal composure the youth took off his coat. Mrs. H. was not 
abashed, but in another moment the debtor removed his waist- 
coat also. Mrs. H. was still immoveable. Sundry other arti- 
cles of dress followed, and the good lady began to be nervous. 
^ Now, Mrs. Hall, you can stay if you like, but I assure you that 
I am going to change all my dress.' Suiting the action to the 
word, he began to remove his lower garments, when Mrs. Hall, 
shocked and furious, rushed from the room. 

This reminds us of Sheridan's treatment of a female creditor. 
He had for some years hired his carriage-horses from Edbrooke 
in Clarges Street, and his bill was a heavy one. Mrs. Edbrooke 
wanted a new bonnet, and blew up her mate for not insisting on 
payment. The curtain lecture was followed next day by a re- 
fusal to allow Mr. Sheridan to have the horses till the account 
was settled. Mr. Sheridan sent the politest possible message in 
reply, begging that Mrs. Edbrooke would allow his coachman to 
drive her in his own carriage to his door, and promising that the 
matter should be satisfactorily arranged. The good woman lyas 
delighted, dressed in her best, and, bill in hand, entered the 



Dims Outwitted, ^y^ 

M.P.'s chariot. Sheridan meanwhile had given orders to his 
servants. Mrs. Edbrooke was shown up into the back drawing- 
room, where a sHght luncheon, of which she was begged to 
partake, was laid out; and she was assured that her debtor 
would not keep her waiting long, though for the moment en- 
gaged. The horse-dealer's wife sat down and discussed a wing 
of chicken and glass of wine, and in the meantime her victi- 
mizer had been watching his opportunity, slipped down stairs, 
jumped into the vehicle, and ^xoyq off. Mrs. Edbrooke 
finished her lunch and waited in vain; ten minutes, twenty, 
thirty, passed, and then she rang the bell : ^ Very sorry, ma'am, 
but Mr. Sheridan went out on important business half an hour 
ago.' ^ And the carriage ?' — ' Oh, ma'am, Mr. Sheridan never 
walks.' 

He procured his wine in the same style. Chalier, the wine- 
merchant, was his creditor to a large amount, and had stopped 
supplies. Sheridan was to give a grand dinner to the leaders 
of the Opposition, and had no port or sherry to offer them. On 
the morning of the day fixed he sent for Chalier, and told him 
he wanted to settle his account. The importer, much pleased, 
said he would go home and bring it at once. ^ Stay,' cried the 

debtor, 'will you dine with me to-day ; Lord , Sir , and 

So-and-so are coming.' Chalier was flattered and readily accepted. 
Returning to his office, he told his clerk that he should dine 
with Mr. Sheridan, and therefore leave early. At the proper 
hour he arrived in full dress, and was no sooner in the house 
than his host despatched a message to the clerk at the office, 
saying that Mr. Chalier wished him to send up at once three 
dozen of Burgundy, two of claret, two of port, &c., &c. No- 
thing seemed more natural, and the wine was forwarded, just 
in time for the dinner. It was highly praised by the guests, 
who asked Sheridan who was his wine -merchant. The host 
bowed towards Chalier, gave him a high recommendation, and 
impressed him with the belief that he was telling a polite false- 
hood in order to secure him other customers. Little did he 
think that he was drinking his own wine, and that it was not, 
and probably never would be, paid for ! 

In like manner, when he wanted a particular Burgimdy from 



374 The Lawyer Jockeyed, 

an innkeeper at Richmond, who declined to supply it till his 
bill was paid, he sent for the man, and had no sooner seen him 
safe in the house than he drove off to Richmond, saw his wife, 
told her he had just had a conversation with mine host, settled 
everything, and would, to save them trouble, take the wine with 
him in his carriage. The condescension overpowered the good 
woman, who ordered it at once to be produced, and Sheridan 
drove home about the time that her husband was returning to 
Richmond, weary of waiting for his absent debtor. But this 
kind of trickery could not always succeed without some know- 
ledge of his creditor's character. In the case of Holloway, the 
lawyer, Sheridan took advantage of his well-known vanity of 
his judgment of horse-flesh. Kelly gives the anecdote as authen- 
tic. He was walking one day with Sheridan, close to the 
churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, when, as ill-luck would 
have it, up comes Holloway on horseback, and in a furious rage, 
complains that he has called on Mr. Sheridan time and again in 
Hertford Street, and can never gain admittance. He proceeds 
to violent threats, and slangs his debtor roundly. Sheridan, 
cool as a whole bed of cucumbers, takes no notice of these 
attacks, but quietly exclaims : ' What a beautiful creature you're 
riding, Holloway T The lawyer's weak point was touched. 
. * You were speaking to me the other day about a horse for 
Mrs. Sheridan ; now this would be a treasure for a lady.' 

* Does he canter well ?' asks Sheridan, with a look of busi- 
ness. 

' Like Pegasus himself.* 

' If that's the case, I shouldn't mind, Holloway, stretching a 
point for him. Do you mind showing me his paces ?' 

* Not at all,' replies the lawyer, only too happy to show off his 
own : and touching up the horse, put him to a quiet canter. 
The moment is not to be lost ; the churchyard gate is at hand ; 
Sheridan slips in, knowing that his mounted tormentor cannot 
follow him, and there bursts into a roar of laughter, which is 
joined in by Kelly, but not by the returning Holloway. 

But if he escaped an importunate lawyer once in a way like 
this, he required more ingenuity to get rid of the limbs of the 
law, when they came, as they did frequently in his later years. 




"A TREASURE FOR A LADY "—SHERIDAN AND THE LAWVER 



See p. 374 



Adventures with Bailiffs, 375 

It was the fashionable thing in bygone novels of the ^ Pelham ' 
school, and even in more recent comedies, to introduce a well- 
dressed sheriff's officer at a dinner party or ball, and take him 
through a variety of predicaments, ending, at length, in the re- 
velation of his real character ; and probably some such scene 
is still enacted from time to time in the houses of the extrava- 
gant : but Sheridan's adventures with bailiffs seem to have ex- 
cited more attention. In the midst of his difficulties he never 
ceased to entertain his friends, ancf^why should he not do so, 
since he had not to pay ?' ^ Pay your bills, sir ? what a shame- 
ful waste of money !' he once said. Thus, one day a young 
friend was met by him and taken back to dinner, * quite in a 
quiet way, just to meet a very old friend of mine, a man of 
great talent, and most charming companion.' When they ar- 
rived they found ^ the old friend ' already installed, and pre- 
senting a somewhat unpolished appearance, which the young 
man explained to himself by supposing him to be a genius of 
somewhat low extraction. His habits at dinner, the eager 
look, the free use of his knife, and so forth, were all accounted 
for in the same way, but that he was a genius of no slight dis- 
tinction was clear from the deep respect and attention with which 
Sheridan listened to his slightest remarks, and asked his opinion 
on English poetry. Meanwhile Sheridan and the servant between 
them plied the genius very liberally with wine : and the former, 
rising, made him a complimentary speech on his critical powers, 
while the young guest, who had heard nothing from his lips but 
the commonest platitudes in very bad English, grew more and 
more amused. The wine told in time, the ^ genius ' sang songs 
which were more Saxon than delicate, talked loud, clapped his 
host on the shoulder, and at last rolled fairly under the table. 
^ Now,' said Sheridan, quite calmly to his young friend, * we 
will go up stairs : and, Jack,' (to his servant) 'take that man's 
hat and give him to the watch,' He then explained in the 
same calm tone, that this was a bailiff of whose company he 
was growing rather tired, and wanted to be freed. 

But his finest tricks were undoubtedly those by v/hich he turned, 
harlequin-like, a creditor into a lender. This was done by sheer 
orce of persuasion, by assuming a lofty indignation, or by put- 



37^ Sheridan's Powers of Persuasion, 

ting forth his claims to mercy with the most touching eloquence 
over which he would laugh heartily when his point was gained. 
He was often compelled to do this during his theatrical manage- 
ment, when a troublesome creditor might have interfered with 
the success of the establishment. He talked over an uphol- 
sterer who came with a writ for £2>S^ ^i^l the latter handed him, 
instead, a cheque for ;^2oo. He once, when the actors struck 
for arrears of wages to the amount of ;^3,ooo, and his bankers 
refused flatly to Kelly to advance another penny, screwed the 
whole sum out of them in less than a quarter of an hour by 
sheer talk. He got a gold watch from Harris, the manager, 
with whom he had broken several appointments, by complain- 
ing that as he had no watch he could never tell the time fixed 
for their meetings ; and, as for putting off pressing creditors, 
and turning furious foes into affectionate friends, he was such 
an adept at it, that his reputation as a dun-destroyer is quite on 
a par with his fame as comedian and orator. 

Hoaxing, a style of amusement fortunately out of fashion 
now, was almost a passion with him, and his practical jokes 
were as merciless as his satire. He and Tickell, who had mar- 
ried the sister of his wife, used to play them off on one another 
like a couple of schoolboys. One evening, for instance, She- 
ridan got together all the crockery in the house and arranged it 
in a dark passage, leaving a small channel for escape for him- 
self, and then, having teased Tickell till he rushed after him, 
bounded out and picked his way gingerly along the passage. 
His friend followed him unwittingly, and at the first step stum- 
bled over a washhand-basin, and fell forwards with a crash on 
piles of plates and dishes, which cut his face and hands in a 
most cruel manner, Sheridan all the while laughing immoderately 
at the end of the passage, secure from vengeance. 

But his most impudent hoax was that on the Honourable 
House of Commons itself Lord Belgrave had made a very 
telling speech which he wound up with a Greek quotation, 
loudly applauded. Sheridan had no arguments to meet him 
with ; so rising, he admitted the force of his lordship's quota- 
tion (of which he probably did not understand a word), but 
added that had he gone a little farther, and completed the 



House of Commons Greek, 377 

passage, he would have seen that the context completely altered 
the sense. He would prove it to the House, he said, and forth- 
with rolled forth a grand string of majestic gibberish so well 
imitated that the whole assembly cried, ' Hear, hear !* Lord 
Belgrave rose again, and frankly admitted that the passage had 
the meaning ascribed to it by the honourable gentleman, and 
that he had overlooked it at the moment. At the end of the 
evening. Fox, who prided himself on his classical lore, came up 
to and said to him, ^ Sheridan, ho^came you to be so ready 
with that passage ? It is certainly as you say, but I was not 
aware of it before you quoted it.' Sheridan was wise enough 
to keep his own counsel for the time, but must have felt de- 
lightfully tickled at the ignorance of the would-be savants with 
whom he was politically associated. Probably Sheridan could 
not at any time have quoted a whole passage of Greek on the 
spur of the moment ; but it is certain that he had not kept up 
his classics, and at the time in question must have forgotten the 
little he ever knew of them. 

This facility of imitating exactly the sound of a language 
without introducing a single word of it is not so very rare, but 
is generally possessed in greater readiness by those who know 
no tongue but their own, and are therefore more struck by the 
strangeness of a foreign one, when hearing it. Many of us 
have heard Italian songs in which there was not a word of 
actual Italian sung in London burlesques, and some of us have 
laughed at Levassor's capital imitation of English ; but perhaps 
the cleverest mimic of the kind I ever heard was M. Laffitte, 
brother of that famous banker who made his fortune by picking 
up a pin. This gentleman could speak nothing but French, but 
had been brought by his business into contact with foreigners of 
every race at Paris, and when he once began his little trick, it 
was impossible to believe that he was not possessed of a gift of 
tongues. His German and Italian were good enough, but his 
English was so spendidly counterfeited, that after listening to 
him for a short time, I suddenly heard a roar of laughter from 
all present, for I had actually unconsciously answered him, 
* Yes,' ' No,' ^ Exactly so,' and ' I quite agree with you !' 

Undoubtedly much of Sheridan's depravity must be attributed 



3/8 The Royal Boon Companion, 

to his intimacy with a man whom it was a great honour to a 
youngster then to know, but who would probably be scouted 
even from a London club in the present day — the Prince of 
Wales. The part of a courtier is always degrading enough to 
play j but to be courtier to a prince whose favour was to be 
won by proficiency in vice, and audacity in follies, to truckle to 
his tastes, to win his smiles by the invention of a new pleasure 
and his approbation by the plotting of a new villany, what an 
office for the author of ' The School for Scandal,' and the orator 
renowned for denouncing the wickednesses of Warren Hastings ! 
What a life for the young poet who had wooed and won the 
Maid of Bath — for the man of strong domestic affections, who 
wept over his father's sternness, and loved his son only too well ! 
It was bad enough for such mere worldlings as Captain Hanger 
or Beau Brummell, but for a man of higher and purer feelings, 
like Sheridan, who, with all his faults, had some poetry in his 
soul, such a career was doubly disgraceful. 

It was at the house of the beautiful, lively, and adventurous 
Duchess of Devonshire, the partizan of Charles James Fox, 
who loved him or his cause — for Fox and Liberalism were often 
one in ladies' eyes — so well, that she could give Steele, the 
butcher, a kiss for his vote, that Sheridan first met the prince — 
then a boy in years, but already more than an adult in vice. 
No doubt the youth whom Fox, Brummell, Hanger, Lord 
Surrey, Sheridan, the tailors and the women, combined to turn 
at once into the finest gentleman and greatest blackguard in 
Europe, was at that time as fascinating in appearance and man- 
ner as any one, prince or not, could be. He was by far the 
handsomest of the Hanoverians, and had the least amount of 
their sheepish look. He possessed all their taste and capacity, 
for gallantry, with apparently none of the German coarseness 
which certain other Princes of Wales exhibited in their amorous 
address. His coarseness was of a more sensual, but less im- 
perious kind. He had his redeeming points, which few of his 
ancestors had, and his liberal hand and warm heart won him 
friends, where his conduct could win him little else than con- 
tempt. Sheridan was introduced to him by Fox, and Mrs. 
Sheridan by the Duchess of Devonshire. The prince had that 



Anecdotes of She^^idan and ' Wales! 379 

which always takes with Englishmen — a readiness of convivi- 
ality, and a recklessness of character. He was ready to chat, 
drink, and bet with Sheridan, or any new comer equally well 
recommended, and an introduction to young George was always 
followed by an easy recognition. With all this he managed to 
keep up a certain amount of royal dignity under the most try- 
ing circumstances, but he had none of that easy grace which 
made Charles II. beloved by his associates. When the George 
had gone too far, he had no resource but to cut the individual 
with whom he had hobbed and nobbed, and he was as un- 
grateful in his enmities as he was ready with his friendship. 
Brummell had taught him to dress, and Sheridan had given him 
wiser counsels : he quarrelled with both for trifles, which, if he 
had had real dignity, would never have occurred, and if he had 
had real friendship, would easily have been overlooked. 

Sheridan's breach with the prince was honourable to him. 
He could not wholly approve of the conduct of that personage 
and his ministers, and he told him openly that his life was at 
his service, but his character was the property of the country. 
The prince replied that Sheridan ^ might impeach his ministers 
on the morrow — that would not impair their friendship ;' yet 
turned on his heel, and was never his friend again. When, 
again, the ' delicate investigation' came off, he sent for Sheridan, 
and asked his aid. The latter replied, ' Your royal highness 
honours me, but I will never take part against a woman, whether 
she be right or wrong.' His political courage atones somewhat 
for the want of moral courage he displayed in pandering to the 
prince's vices. 

Many an anecdote is told of Sheridan and ^ Wales ' — many, 
indeed, that cannot be repeated. Their bets were often of the 
coarsest nature, won by Sheridan in the coarsest manner. A 
great intimacy sprang up between the two reprobates, and 
Sheridan became one of the satellites of that dissolute prince. 
There are few of the stories of their adventures which can be 
told in a work like this, but we may give one or two specimens 
of the less disgraceful character : — 

The Prince, Lord Surrey, and Sheridan were in the habit of 
seeking nightly adventures of any kind that suggested itself tc 



380 Street Frolics at Night. 

their lively minds. A low tavern, still in existence, was the 
rendezvous of the heir to the crown and his noble and distin- 
guished associates. This was the * Salutation/ in Tavistock 
Court, Covent Garden, a night house for gardeners and 
countrymen, and for the sharpers who fleeced both, and was 
kept by a certain Mother Butler, who favoured in every way 
the adventurous designs of her exalted guests. Here wigs, 
smock-frocks, and other disguises were in readiness ; and here, 
at call, was to be found a ready-made magistrate, whose sole 
occupation was to deliver the young Haroun and his com- 
panions from the dilemmas which their adventures naturally 
brought them into, and which were generally more or less 
concerned with the watch. Poor old watch ! what happy days, 
when members of parliament, noblemen, and future monarchs 
condescended to break thy bob-wigged head! and — blush, 
Z 350, immaculate constable — to toss thee a guinea to buy 
plaster with. 

In addition to the other disguise, aliases were of course as- 
sumed. The prince went by the name of Blackstock, Greystock 
was my Lord Surrey, and Thinstock Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 
The treatment of women by the police is traditional. The 
'unfortunate' — unhappy creatures! — are their pet aversion; 
and once in their clutches, receive no mercy. The ' Charley ' 
of old was quite as brutal as the modern Hercules of the 
glazed hat, and the three adventurers showed an amount of 
zeal worthy of a nobler cause, in rescuing the drunken Lais 
from his grasp. On one occasion they seem to have hit on a 
' deserving case / a slight skirmish with the watch ended in a 
rescue, and the erring creature was taken off to a house of 
respectability sufficient to protect her. Here she told her tale, 
which, however improbable, turned out to be true. It was 
a very old, a very simple one — the common history of many a 
frail, foolish girl, cursed with beauty, and the prey of a prac- 
tised seducer. The main peculiarity lay in the fact of her 
respectable birth, and his position, she being the daughter of 
a solicitor, he the son of a nobleman. Marriage was promised, 
of course, as it has been promised a milHon times with the 
same intent, and for the millionth time was not performed. The 



An Old Tale. 381 

seducer took her from her home, kept her quiet for a time, 
and when the novelty was gone, abandoned her. The old 
story went on ; poverty — a child — a mother's love struggling 
with a sense of shame — a visit to her father's house at the 
last moment, as a forlorn hope. There she had crawled on 
her knees to one of those relentless parents on whose heads 
lie the utter loss of their children's souls. The false pride, that 
spoke of the blot on his name,^ the disgrace .of his house — 
when a Saviour's example should have bid him forgive and 
raise the penitent in her misery from the dust — whispered 
him to turn her from his door. He ordered the footman to put 
her out, The man, a nobleman in plush, moved by his young 
mistress's utter misery, would not obey thcjgh it cost him his 
place, and the harder-hearted father himself thrust his starving 
child into the cold street, into the drizzling rain, and slammed 
the door upon her cries of agony. The footman slipped out 
after her, and five shillings — a large sum for him — found its 
way from his kind hand to hers. Now the common ending 
might have come ; now starvation, the slow, unwilling, recourse 
to more shame and deeper vice ; then the forced hilarity, the 
unreal smile, which in so many of these poor creatures hides 
a canker at the heart ; the gradual degradation — lower still and 
lower — oblivion for a moment sought in the bottle — a life of 
sin and death ended in a hospital. The will of Providence 
turned the frolic of three voluptuaries to good account ; the 
prince gave his purse-full, Sheridan his one last guinea for her 
present needs ; the name of the good-hearted Plush was dis- 
covered, and he was taken into Carlton House, where he soon 
became known as Roberts, the prince's confidential servant ; 
and Sheridan bestirred himself to rescue for ever the poor 
lady, whose beauty still remained as a temptation. He pro- 
cured her a situation, where she studied for the stage, on which 
she eventually appeared. ' All's well that ends well : ' her 
secret was kept, till one admirer came honourably forward. 
To him it was confided, and he was noble enough to forgive 
the one false step of youth. She was well married, and the 
boy for whom she had suff"ered so much fell at Trafalgar, a 
lieutenant in the navy. 



3^2 The Fray in St. Giles's, 

To better men such an adventure would have been a solemn 
warning ; such a tale, told by the ruined one herself, a sermon, 
every word of which would have clung to their memories. 
What effect, if any, it may have had on Blackstock and his 
companions must have been very fleeting. 

It is not so very long since the Seven Dials and St. Giles' 
were haunts of wickedness and dens of thieves, into which 
the police scarcely dared to penetrate. Probably their mys- 
teries would have afforded more amusement to the artist and 
the student of character than to the mere seeker of adven- 
ture, but it was still, I remember, in my early days, a great feat 
to visit by night one of the noted ^ cribs' to which * the profes- 
sion ' which fills Newgate was wont to resort. The * Brown Bear/ 
in Broad Street, St. Giles', was one of these pleasant haunts, and 
thither the three adventurers determined to go. This style of 
adventure is out of date, and no longer amusing. Of course a 
fight ensued, in which the prince and his companions showed 
immense pluck against terrible odds, and in which, as one 
reads in the novels of the * London Journal ' or ' Family 
Herald,' the natural superiority of the well-born of course dis- 
played itself to great advantage. Surely Bulwer has described 
such scenes too graphically in some of his earlier novels to 
make a minute description here at all necessary; but the 
reader who is curious in the matter may be referred to a work 
which has recently appeared under the title of ' Sheridan and 
his Times,' professing to be written by an Octogenarian, intimate 
with the hero. The fray ended with the arrival of the watch, 
who rescued Blackstock, Greystock, and Thinstock, and with 
Dogberryan stupidity carried them ofi" to a neighbouring lock-up. 
The examination which took place was just the occasion for 
Sheridan's fun to display itself on, and pretending to turn informer^ 
he succeeded in bewildering the unfortunate parochial constable^ 
who conducted it, till the arrival of the magistrate, whose duty 
was to deliver his friends from durance vile. The whole scene 
is well described in the book just referred to, with, we presume, 
a certain amount of idealizing ; but the ' Octogenarian ' had 
probably heard the story from Sheridan himself, and the main 



Un-opencd Letters. 383 

points must be accepted as correct. The affair ended, as usual, 
with a supper at the ' Salutation.' 

We must now follow Sheridan in his gradual downfall. 

One of the causes of this — as far as money was concerned — 
was his extreme indolence and utter negligence. He trusted 
far too much to his ready wit and rapid genius. Thus when 
^ Pizarro ' was to appear, day after day went by,, and nothing 
was done. On the night of representation, only four acts out 
of five were written, and even th^se had not been rehearsed, 
the principal performers, Siddons, Charles Kemble and Barry- 
more, having only just received their parts. Sheridan was up 
in the prompter's room actually writing the fifth act while the 
first was being performed, and every now and then appeared 
in the green-room with a fresh relay of dialogue, and setting all 
in good humour by his merry abuse of his own negligence. In 
spite of this, ^ Pizarro ' succeeded. He seldom wrote except 
at night, and surrounded by a profusion of lights. Wine was 
his great stimulant in composition, as it has been to better 
and worse authors, ^ If the thought is slow to come,' he would 
say, ^ a glass of good wine encourages it ; and when it does 
come, a glass of good wine rewards it.' Those glasses of good 
wine, were, unfortunately, even more frequent than the good 
thoughts, many and merry as they were. 

His neglect of letters was a standing joke against him. He 
never took the trouble to open any that he did not expect, 
and often left sealed many that he was most anxious to read. 
He once appeared with his begging face at the Bank, humbly 
asking an advance of twenty pounds. '' Certainly, sir j would 
you like any more ? — fifty or a hundred ?' said the smiling clerk. 
Sheridan was overpowered. He would like a hundred. ^ Two 
or three ?' asked the scribe. Sheridan thought he was joking, 
but was ready for two or even three — he was always ready for 
more. But he could not conceal his surprise. ^ Have you not 
received our letter ?' the clerk asked, perceiving it. Certainly 
he had received the epistle, which informed him that his salary 
as Receiver-General of Cornwall had been paid in, but he had 
never opened it. 

This neglect of letters once broiit^ht him into a troublesome 



384 Reckless Extravagance. 

lawsuit about the theatre. It was necessary to pay certain 
demands, and he had appHed to the Duke of Bedford to be 
his security. The duke had consented, and for a whole year 
his letter of consent remained unopened. In the meantime 
Sheridan had believed that the duke had neglected him, and 
allowed the demands to be brought into court. 

In the same way he had long before committed himself in 
the affair with Captain Matthews. In order to give a public 
denial of certain reports circulated in Bath, he had called upon 
an editor, requesting him to insert the said reports in his paper 
in order that he might write him a letter to refute them. The 
editor at once complied, the calumny was printed and pub- 
lished, but Sheridan forgot all about his own refutation, which 
was applied for in vain till too late. 

Other causes were his extravagance and intemperance. There 
was an utter want of even common moderation in everything 
he did. Whenever his boyish spirit suggested any freak, when- 
ever a craving of any kind possessed him, no matter what the 
consequences here or hereafter, he rushed heedlessly into the 
indulgence of it. Perhaps the enemy had never an easier sub- 
ject to deal with. Any sin in which there was a show of pre- 
sent mirth, or easy pleasure, was as easily taken up by Sheridan 
as if he had not a single particle of conscience or religious 
feeling, and yet we are not at all prepared to say that he lacked 
either ; he had only deadened both by excessive indulgence of 
his fancies. The temptation of wealth and fame had been too 
much for the poor and obscure young man who rose to them 
so suddenly, and, as so often happens, those very talents which 
should have been his glory, were, in fact, his ruin. 

His extravagance was unbounded. At a time when misfor- 
tune lay thick upon him, and bailiffs were hourly expected, he 
would invite a large party to a dinner, which a prince might 
have given, and to which one prince sometimes sat down. On 
one occasion, having no plate left from the pawnbroker's, he 
had to prevail on ' my uncle' to lend him some for a banquet 
he was to give. The spoons and forks were sent, and with 
them two of his men, who, dressed in livery, waited, no doubt 
with the most vigilant attention, on the party. Such at that 



sporting Ambition. 385 

period was the host's reputation, when he could not even be 
trusted not to pledge another man's property. At one time his 
income was reckoned at ;^i 5,000 a year, when the theatre was 
prosperous. Of this he is said to have spent not more than 
;^5,ooo on his household, while the balance went to pay for his 
former follies, debts, and the interest, lawsuits often arising from 
mere carelessness and judgments against the theatre ! Probably 
a great deal of it was betted away, drank away, thrown away in 
one way or another. As for bettitig, he generally lost all the 
wagers he made : as he said himself — ^ I never made a bet upon 
my own judgment that I did not lose ; and I never won but 
one, which I had made against my judgment' His bets were 
generally laid in hundreds ; and though he did not gamble, he 
could of course run through a good deal of money in this way. 
He betted on every possible trifle, but chiefly, it would seem, 
on political possibilities ; the state of the Funds, the result of 
an election, or the downfall of a ministry. Horse-races do not 
seem to have possessed any interest for him, and, in fact, he 
scarcely knew one kind of horse from another. He was never 
an adept at field-sports, though very ambitious of being thought 
a sportsman. Once, when staying in the country, he went out 
with a friend's gamekeeper to shoot pheasants, and after wasting 
a vast amount of powder and shot upon the air, he was only res- 
cued from ignominy by the sagacity of his companion, who, 
going a little behind him when a bird rose, brought it down 
so neatly that Sheridan, believing he had killed it himself, 
snatched it up, and rushed bellowing with glee back to the 
house to show that he could shoot. In the same way, he tried 
his hand at fishing in a wretched little stream behind the 
Deanery at Winchester, using, however, a net, as easier to han- 
dle than a rod. Some boys, who had watched his want of suc- 
cess a long time, at last bought a few pennyworth of pickled 
herrings, and throwing them on the stream, allowed them to 
float down towards the eager disciple of old Izaak. Sheridan 
saw them coming, rushed in regardless of his clothes, cast his 
net, and in great triumph secured them. When he had landed 
his prize, however, there were the boys bursting with laughter, 
and Piscator saw he was their dupe. ^ Ah !' cried he, laughing 

-5 



386. Like Father, like Son. 

in concert, as he looked at his dripping clothes, ' this is a pretty 
pickle indeed !' 

His extravagance was Vv^ell known to his friends, as well as 
to his creditors. Lord Guildford met him one day. ^ Well, 
Sherry, so you've taken a new house, I hear.' — -^Yes, and you'll 
see now that everything will go on like clockwork.' — * Ay,' 
said my lord, with a knowing leer, ' tick, tick' Even his son 
Tom used to laugh at him for it. ^ Tom, if you marry that 
girl, I'll cut you off with a shilling." — 'Then you must borrow 
it,' replied the ingenuous youth. ^ Tom sometimes discon- 
certed his father with his inherited wit — his only inheritance. 
He pressed urgently for money on one, as on many an occasion. 
' I have none,' was the reply, as usual ; ' there is a pair of pistols 
up stairs, a horse in the stable, the night is dark, and Houns- 
low Heath at hand.' 

' I understand what you mean,' replied young Tom ; ^ but I 
tried that last night, and unluckily stopped your treasurer, 
Peake, who told me you had been beforehand with him, and 
robbed him of every sixpence he had in the world.' 

So much for the respect of son to father ! 

Papa had his revenge on the young wit, when Tom, talking 
of Parliament, announced his intention of entering it on an in- 
dependent basis, ready to be bought by the highest bidder. 
' I shall write on my forehead,' said he, " To let." ' 

^ And under that, Tom, ^' Unfurnished," ' rejoined Sherry the 
elder. The joke is now stale enough. 

But Sheridan was more truly witty in putting down a young 
braggart whom he met at dinner at a country-house. There 
are still to be found, like the bones of dead asses in a field 
newly ploughed, in some parts of the country, youths, who are 
so hopelessly behind their age, and indeed every age, as to look 
upon authorship as degrading, all knowledge, save Latin and 
Greek, as ^ a bore,' and all entertainment but hunting, shooting, 
fishing, and badger-drawing, as unworthy of a man. In the 
last centur^hese young animals, who unite the modesty of 
the puppy with the clear-sightedness of the pig, not to mention 

* Another version is that Tom replied : ' You don't happen to have it about 
you, sir, do you ?' 



A Severe and Witty Rebuke. 387 

the progressiveness of another quadruped, were more numerous 
than in the present day, and in consequence more forward in 
their remarks. It was one of these charming youths, who was 
staying in the same house as Sheridan, and who, quite unpro- 
voked, began at dinner to talk of ' actors and authors, and 
those low sort of people, you know.' Sheridan said nought, 
but patiently bided his time. The next day there was a large 
dinner-party, and Sheridan and the youth happened to sit op- 
posite to one another in the most conspicuous part of the table. 
Young Nimrod was kindly obliging his side of the table with 
extraordinary leaps of his hunter, the perfect working of his new 
double-barrelled Man ton, &c., bringing of course number one 
in as the hero in each case. In a moment of silence, Sheridan, 
with an air of great politeness, addressed his unhappy victim. 
' He had not,' he said, ' been able to catch the whole of the very 

interesting account he had heard Mr. relating.' All eyes 

were turned upon the two. ' Would Mr. permit him to 

ask who it was who made the extraordinary leap he had men- 
tioned ?' — ' I, sir,' replied the youth with some pride. ' Then 
who was it killed the wild duck at that distance ?' — ' I, sir.' 
* Was it your setter who behaved so well ?' — ' Yes, mine, sir,' 
replied the youth, getting rather red over this examination. 
^And who caught the huge salmon so neatly?' — * I, sir.' And 
so the questioning went on through a dozen more items, till 
the young man, weary of answering ^ I, sir,' and growing red- 
der and redder every moment, would gladly have hid his head 
under the table-cloth, in spite of his sporting prowess. But 
Sheridan had to give him the coup de grace. 

' So, sir,' said he, very politely, ' you were the chief actor in 
every anecdote, and the author of them all ; surely it is im- 
politic to despise your own professions.' 

Sheridan's intemperance was as great and as incurable as his 
extravagance, and we think his mind, if not his body, lived only 
on stimulants. He could neither write nor speak without them. 
One day, before one of his finest speeches in ti^ House, he 
was seen to enter a coffee-house, call for a pint oflprandy, and 
swallow it ' neat,' and almost at one gulp. His friends occa- 
sionally interfered. This drinkin^^, they told him, would destroy 

25—2 



388 Iiiiempej^ance, 

the coat of his stomach. ^ Then my stomach must digest in its 
waistcoat,' laughed Sheridan. 

Where are the topers of yore ? Jovial I will not call them, 
for every one knows that 

* Mirth and laughter.' 

w^orked up with a corkscrew, are followed by 

' Headaches and hot coppers the day after.' 

But where are those Anakim of the bottle, who could floor their 
two of port and one of Madeira, though the said two and one 
floored them in turn ? The race, I believe, has died out. Our 
heads have got weaker, as our cellars grew emptier. The ar- 
rangement was convenient. The daughters of Eve have nobly 
undertaken to atone for the naughty conduct of their primeval 
mamma, by reclaiming men, and dragging them from the Hades 
of the mahogany to that seventh heaven of muflins and English 
ballads prepared for them in the drawing-room. 

We are certainly astounded, even to incredulity, when we 
read of the deeds of a David or a Samson ; but such wonder- 
ment can be nothing compared to that which a generation or 
two hence will feel, when sipping, as a great extravagance and 
unpardonable luxury, two thimblefuls of ^ African Sherry/ the 
young demirep of the day reads that three English gentlemen, 
Sheridan, Richardson, and Ward, sat down one day to dinner, 
and before they rose again — if they ever rose, which seems 
doubtful — or, at least, were raised, had emptied five bottles of 
port, two of Madeira, and one of brandy ! Yet this was but 
one instance in a thousand ; there was nothing extraordinary in 
it, and it is only mentioned because the amount drunk is accur- 
ately given by the unhappy owner of the wine, Kelly, the com- 
poser, who, unfortunately, or fortunately, was not present, and 
did not even imagine that the three honourable gentlemen were 
discussing his little store. Yet Sheridan does not seem to have 
believed much in his friend's vintages, for he advised him to 
alter his br^s plate to ' Michael Kelly, Composer of Wine and 
Importer of Music' He made a better joke, when, dining with 
Lord Thurlow, he tried in vain to induce him to produce a 
stioond bottle of some extremely choice Constantia from the 



Worth Wins at Last, 389 

Cape of Good Hope. *Ah,' he muttered to his neighbour, 
* pass me that decanter, if you please, for I must return to Ma- 
deira, as I see I cannot double the Cape.^ 

But as long as Richard Brinsley was a leader of political and 
fashionable circles, as long as he had a position to keep up, an 
ambition to satisfy, a labour to complete, his drinking was, if 
not moderate, not extraordinary for his time and his associates. 
But when a man's ambition is lin^ted to mere success — when 
fame and a flash for himself are all he cares for, and there is 
no truer, grander motive for his sustaining the position he has 
climbed to — when, in short, it is his own glory, not mankind's 
good, he has ever striven for — woe, woe, woe when the hour 
of success is come ! I cannot stop to name and examine in- 
stances, but let me be allowed to refer to that bugbear who is 
called up whenever greatness of any kind has to be illustrated 
— Napoleon the Great ; or let me take any of the lesser Napo- 
leons in lesser grades in any nation, any age — the men who have 
had no star but self and self glory before them — and let me ask 
if any one can be named who, if he has survived the attain- 
ment of his ambition, has not gone down the other side of the 
hill somewhat faster than he came up it ? Then let me select 
men whose guiding-star has been the good of their fellow-crea- 
tures, or the glory of God, and watch their peaceful useful end 
on that calm summit that they toiled so honestly to reach. The 
difference comes home to us. The moral is read only at the 
end of the story. Remorse rings it for ever in the ears of the 
dying — often too long a-dying — man who has laboured for him- 
self Peace reads it smilingly to him whose generous toil for 
others has brought its own reward. 

Sheridan had climbed with the stride of a giant, laughing at 
rocks, at precipices, at slippery watercourses. He had spread 
the wings of genius to poise himself withal, and gained one 
peak after another, while homelier worth was struggling mid- 
way, clutching the bramble and clinging to the ferns. He had, 
as Byron said in Sheridan's days of decay, done the best in all 
he undertook, written the best comedy, best opera, best flirce ; 
spoken the best parody, and made the best si)eech. Sheridan, 
when those words of the young poet were told him, shed tears. 



390 Bitter Pangs— The Scythe of Death, 

Perhaps the bitter thought struck him, that he had not led the 
best, but the worst hfe ; that comedy, farce, opera, monody, and 
oration were nothing, nothing to a pure conscience and a peace- 
ful old age ; that they could not save him from shame and po- 
verty—from debt, disgrace, drunkenness— from grasping, but 
long-cheated creditors, who dragged his bed from under the 
feeble, nervous, ruined old man. Poor Sheridan ! his end was 
too bitter for us to cast one stone more upon him. Let it be 
noted that it was in the beginning of his decline, when, having 
reached the climax of all his ambition and completed his fame 
as a dramatist, orator, and wit, that the hand of Providence 
mercifully interposed to rescue this reckless man from his down- 
fall. It smote him with that common but powerful weapon- 
death. Those he best loved were torn from him, one after 
another, rapidly, and with litde warning. The Linleys, the 
' nest of nightingales,' were all delicate as nightingales should 
be ; and it seemed as if this very time was chosen for their 
deaths, that the one erring soul— more precious, remember, than 
many just lives— might be called back. Almost within one 
year he lost his dear sister-in-law, the wife of his most intimate 
friend Tickell ; Maria Linley, the last of the family ; his own 
wife, and his little daughter. One grief succeeded another so 
rapidly that Sheridan was utterly unnerved, utterly brought low 
by them ; but it was his wife's death that told most upon him. 
With that wife he had always been the lover rather than the 
husband. She had married him in the days of his poverty, 
when her beauty was so celebrated that she might have wed 
whom she would. She had risen with him and shared his later 
anxieties. Yet she had seen him forget, neglect her, and seek 
other society. In spite of his tender affection for her and 
for his children, he had never made a home of their home. 
Vanity Fair had kept him ever flitting, and it is litde to be 
wondered at that Mrs. Sheridan was the object of much, 
though ever respectful admiration.'' Yet, in spite of calumny, 
she died with a fair fame. Decline had long pressed upon her, 

* I ord Edward Fitzgerald was one of the most devoted of her admirers : he 
chose his wife,- Pamela, because she resembled Mrs. Sheridan.-See Moore s Ljte 
of Lord Edward. 



Sheridan^ s Second Wife. 391 

yet her last illness was too brief. In 1792 she was taken away, 
still in the summer of her days, and with her last breath utter- 
ing her love for the man who had never duly prized her. 
His grief was terrible ; yet it passed, and wrought no change. 
He found solace in his beloved son, and yet more beloved 
daughter. A few months — and the little girl followed her 
mother. Again his grief was terrible: again passed and wrought 
no change. Yes, it did work some change, but not for the 
better ; it drove him to the goblet; and from that time we may 
date the confirmation of his habit of drinking. The solemn 
warnings had been unheeded : they were to be repeated by a 
long-suffering God in a yet more solemn manner, which should 
touch him yet more nearly. His beautiful wife had been the 
one restraint upon his folly and his lavishness. Now she was 
gone, they burst out afresh, wilder than ever. 

For a while after these afflictions, which were soon com- 
pleted in the death of his most intimate friend and boyish com- 
panion, Tickell, Sheridan threw himself again into the commo- 
tion of the political world. But in this we shall not follow him. 
Three years after the death of his first wife he married again. 
He was again fortunate in his choice. Though now forty -four, 
he succeeded in winning the heart of a most estimable and charm- 
ing young lady with a fortune of ;^5,ooo. She must indeed have 
loved or admired the widower very much to consent to be the 
wife of a man so notoriously irregular, to use a mild term, in his 
life. .But Sheridan fascinated wherever he went, and young 
ladies like ^ a little wildness.' His heart was always good, and 
where he gave it, he gave it warmly, richly, fully. His second 
wife was Miss Esther Jane Ogle, daughter of the Dean of Win- 
chester. She was given to him on condition of his settling in 
all ;^2 0,000, upon her — a wise proviso with such a spendthrift 
— and he had to raise the money, as usual. 

His political career was sufficiently brilliant, though his real 
fame as a speaker rests on his great oration at Hastings' trial. 
In 1806 he satisfied another point of his ambition, long de- 
sired, and was elected for the city of Westminster, which he had 
ardently coveted when Fox represented it. But a dissolution 
threw him again on the mercy of the popular party ; and again 



392 Debts of Honour, 

he offered himself for Westminster: but, in spite of all the 
efforts made for him, without success. He was returned, in- 
stead, for Ilchester. 

Meanwhile his difficulties increased; extravagance, debt, 
want of energy to meet both, brought him speedily into that 
position when a man accepts without hesitation the slightest 
offer of aid. The man who had had an income of ;^iS,ooo a 
year, and settled ;^2 0,000 on his wife, allowed a poor friend 
to pay a bill for j[^^ for him, and clutched eagerly at a ;^So 
note when displayed to him by another. Extravagance is the 
father of meanness, and Sheridan was often mean in the readi- 
ness with which he accepted offers, and the anxiet\^ with which 
he implored assistance. It is amusing in the present day to 
hear a man talk of ^ a debt of honour,' as if all debts did not 
demand honour to pay them — as if all debts incurred without 
hope of repayment were not dishonourable. A story is told 
relative to the old-fashioned idea of a ' debt of honour.' A 
tradesman, to whom he had given a bill for ;^2oo, called on 
him for the amount. A heap of gold was lying on the table. 
^ Don't look that way,' cried Sheridan, after protesting that he 
had not a penny in the world, ' that is to pay a debt of honour.' 
The applicant, with some wit, tore up the bill he held. ^ Now, 
Mr. Sheridan,' quoth he, ^ mine is a debt of honour too.' It is 
to be hoped that Sheridan handed him the money. 

The story of Gunter's bill is not so much to his credit. 
Hanson, an ironmonger, called upon him and pressed for pay- 
ment. A bill sent in by the famous confectioner was lying on 
the table. A thought struck the debtor, who had no means of 
getting rid of his importunate applicant. ' You know Gunter ?' 
he asked. ' One of the safest men in London,' replied the 
ironmonger. ' Then will you be satisfied if I give you his hill 
for the amount?' — ^Certainly.' Thereupon Sheridan handed 
him the neatly folded account and rushed from the room, leav- 
ing the creditor to discover the point of Mr. Sheridan's little 
fun. 

Still Sheridan might have weathered through the storm. 
Drury Lane was a mine of wealth to him, and with a little care 
might have been really profitable. The lawsuits, the debts, the 



Drury Lane Btcrnt — the Owner's Serenity, 393 

engagements upon it, all rose from his negligence and extrava- 
gance. But Old Drury was doomed. On the 24th February, 
1809, soon after the conclusion of the performances, it was an- 
nounced to be in flames. Rather it announced itself In a 
few moments it was blazing — a royal bonfire. Sheridan was in 
the House of Commons at the time. The reddened clouds 
above London threw the glare back even to the windows of 
the House. The members rushed from their seats to see the 
unwonted light, and in consideration for Sheridan, an adjourn- 
ment was moved. But he rose calmly, though sadly, and begged 
that no misfortune of his should interrupt the public business. 
His independence, he said — witty in the midst of his troubles — 
had often been questioned, but was now confirmed, for he had 
nothing more to depend upon. He then left the House, and 
repaired to the scene of conflagration. 

Not long after, Kelly found him sitting quite composed in 
* The Bedford,' sipping his wine, as if nothing had happened. 
The musician expressed his astonishment at Mr. Sheridan's 
sangfroid. * Surely,' replied the wit, ^you'll admit that a man 
has a right to take his wine by his own fireside.' But Sheri- 
dan was only drowning care, not disregarding it. The event 
was really too much for him, though perhaps he did not rea- 
lize the extent of its effect at the time. In a word, all he had 
in the world went with the theatre. Nothing was left either 
for him or the principal shareholders. Yet he bore it all with 
fortitude, till he heard that the harpsichord, on which his first 
wife was wont to play, was gone too. Then he burst into tears. 

This fire was the opening of the shaft down which the great 
man sank rapidly. While his fortunes kept up, his spirits 
were not completely exhausted. He drank much, but as an 
indulgence rather than as a relief Now it was by wine alone 
that he could even raise himself to the common requirements 
of conversation. He is described, before dinner, as depressed, 
nervous, and dull ; after dinner only did the old fire break out, 
the old wit blaze up, and Dick Sheridan was Dick Sheridan 
once more. He was, in fact, fearfully oppressed by the long- 
accumulated and never-to-be-wiped-ofl" debts, for which he was 
now daily pressed. In quitting Parliament he resigned his 



394 Misfortunes never come Singly, 

sanctuary, and left himself an easy prey to the Jews and Gen- 
tiles, whom he had so long dodged and deluded with his ready 
ingenuity. Drury Lane, as we all know, was rebuilt, and the 
bixth of the new house heralded with a prologue by Byron, 
about as good as the one in ^Rejected Addresses,' the clever- 
est parodies ever written, and suggested by this very occasion. 
The building-committee having advertised for a prize prologue 
Samuel Whitbread sent in his own attempt, in which, as pro- 
bably in a hundred others, the new theatre was compared to a 
Phoenix rising out of the ashes of the old one. Sheridan said 
Whitbread's description of a Phoenix was excellent, for it was 
qutte 2. poulterer' s description. 

This same Sam Whitbread was now to figure conspicuously 
in the life of Mr. Richard B. Sheridan. The ex-proprietor 
v/as found to have an interest in the theatre to the amount of 
^150,000 — not a trifle to be despised; but he was now past 
sixty, and it need excite no astonishment that, even with all his 
liabilities, he was unwilling to begin again the cares of man- 
agement, or mismanagement which he had endured so many 
years. He sold his interest, in which his son Tom was joined, 
for ;^6o,ooo. This sum would have cleared off his debts and 
left him a balance sufficient to secure comfort for his old age. 
But it was out of the question that any money matters should 
go right with Dick Sheridan. Of the rights and wrongs of 
the quarrel between him and Whitbread, who was the chair- 
man of the committee for building the new theatre, I do not 
pretend to form an opinion. Sheridan was not naturally mean, 
though he descended to meanness when hard pressed — what 
man of his stamp does not ? Whitbread was truly friendly 
to him for a time. Sheridan was always complaining that he 
was sued for debts he did not owe, and kept out of many that 
were due to him. Whitbread knew his man well, and if he with- 
held what was owing to him, may be excused on the ground of 
real friendship. All I know is, that Sheridan and Whitbread 
quarrelled ; that the former did not, or affirmed that he did not, 
receive the full amount of his claim on the property, and that, 
when what he had received was paid over to his principal 
creditors, there was little or nothing left for my lord to spend 



TJic Whitbread Quarrel 395 

in banquets to parliamentary friends and jorums of brandy in 
small coffee-houses. 

Because a man is a genius, he is not of necessity an upright, 
honest, ill-used, oppressed, and cruelly-entreated man. Ge- 
nius plays the fool wittingly, and often enough quite know- 
ingly, with its own interests. It is its privilege to do so, and 
no one has a right to complain. But then Genius ought to 
hold its tongue, and not make itself out a martyr, when it has 
had the dubious glory of defying common-sense. If Genius 
despises gold, well and good, but when he has spurned it, he 
should not whine out that he is wrongfully kept from it. Poor 
Sheridan may or may not have been right in the Whitbread 
quarrel ; he has had his defenders, and I am not ambi- 
tious of being numbered among them ; but whatever were now 
his troubles were brought on by his own disregard of all that 
was right and beautiful in conduct. If he went down to the 
grave a pauper and a debtor, he had made his own bed, and 
in it he was to lie. 

Lie he did, wretchedly, on the most unhappy bed that old 
age ever lay in. There is little more of importance to chro- 
nicle of his latter days. The retribution came on slowly but 
terribly. The career of a ruined man is not a pleasant topic 
to dwell upon, and I leave Sheridan's misery for Mr. J. B. 
Gough to whine and roar over when he wants a shocking ex- 
ample. Sheridan might have earned many a crown in that 
capacity, if temperance-oratory had been the passion of the 
day. Debt, disease, depravity — these words describe enough 
the downward career of his old age. To eat, still more to 
drink, was now the troublesome enigma of the quondam ge- 
nius. I say quondam, for all the marks of that genius were 
now gone. One after another his choicest properties made 
their way to ^ my uncle's.' The books went first, as if they 
could be most easily dispensed with ; the remnants of his plate 
followed ; then his pictures were sold ; and at last even the 
portrait of his first wife, by Reynolds, was left in pledge for a 
* further remittance.' 

The last humiliation arrived in time, and tlie associate ol a 
prince, the elo(|uent organ of a party, the man who had enjoyed 



39^ Ruined I 

jQ^S,ooo, a year, was carried off to a low sponglng-house. His 
pride forsook him in that dismal and disgusting imprisonment, 
and he wrote to Whitbread a letter which his defenders ought 
not to have published. He had his friends — stanch ones too 
— and they aided him. Peter Moore, ironmonger, and even 
Canning, lent him money and released him from time to time. 
For six years after the burning of the old theatre, he continued 
to go down and down. Disease now attacked him fiercely. In 
the spring of 1 8 1 6 he was fast waning towards extinction. His 
day was past ; he had outlived his fame as a wit and social 
light ; he was forgotten by many, if not by most, of his old as- 
sociates. He wrote to Rogers, ' I am absolutely undone and 
broken-hearted.' Poor Sheridan ! in spite of all thy faults, who 
is he whose morality is so stern that he cannot shed one tear 
over thy latter days ! God forgive us, we are all sinners ; and 
if we weep not for this man's deficiency, how shall we ask tears 
when our day comes ? Even as I write, I feel my hand tremble 
and my eyes moisten over the sad end of one whom I love, 
though he died before I was born. ' They are going to put the 
carpets out of window,' he wrote to Rogers, ' and break into 
Mrs. S.'s room and take me. For God's sake let me see you !' 
See him ! — see one friend who could and would help him in his 
misery ! Oh ! happy may that man count himself who has 
never wanted that one friend, and felt the utter helplessness of 
that want ! Poor Sheridan ! had he ever asked, or hoped, or 
looked for that Friend out of this world it had been better ; 
for ' the Lord thy God is a jealous God,' and we go on seeking 
human friendship and neglecting the divine till it is too late. 
He found one hearty friend in his physician, Dr. Bain, when all 
others had forsaken him. The spirit of White's and Brookes', 
the companion of a prince and a score of noblemen, the en- 
livener of every * fashionable' table, was forgotten by all but 
this one doctor. Let us read Moore's description : ' A sherifi''s 
officer at length arrested the dying man in his bed, and was 
about to carry him off, in his blankets, to a sponging-house, 
when Dr. Bain interfered.' Who would live the life of revelry 
that Sheridan lived to have such an end ? A few days after, on 
the 7th of July, i8i6, in his sixty-fifth year, he died. Of his 



The Dead Man A r res ted. 3 97 

last hours the late Professor Smythe wrote an admirable and 
most touching account, a copy of which was circulated in manu- 
script. The Professor, hearing of Sheridan's condition, asked 
to see him, with a view, not only of alleyiating present distress, 
but of calhng the dying man to repentance. From his hands 
the unhappy Sheridan received the Holy Communion ; his face, 
during that solemn rite, — doubly solemn when it is performed 
in the chamber of death, ' expressed,' Smythe relates, * the 
deepest awe.'' That phrase conveys to the mind im.pressions not 
easy to be defined, not soon to be forgotten. 

Peace ! there was not peace even in death, and the creditor 
pursued him even into the ' waste wide,' — even to the coffin. 
He was lying in state, when a gentleman in the deepest mourn- 
ing called, it is said, at tlie house, and introducing himself as 
an old and much-attached friend of the deceased, begged to be 
allowed to look upon his face. The tears which rose in his 
eyes, the tremulousness of his quiet voice, the pallor of his 
mournful face, deceived the unsuspecting servant, who accom- 
panied him to the chamber of death, removed the lid of the 
coffin, turned down the shrowd, and revealed features which had 
once been handsome, but long since rendered almost hideous 
by drinking. The stranger gazed with profound emotion, while . 
he quietly drew from his pocket a bailiff's wand, and touching 
the corpse's face with it, suddenly altered his manner to one of 
considerable glee, and informed the servant that he had arrested 
the corpse in the king's name for a debt of ^500. It was the 
morning of the funeral, which was to be attended by half the 
grandees of England, and in a few minutes the mourners began 
to arrive. But the corpse was the bailiff's property, till his 
claim was paid, and nought but the money would soften the 
iron capturer. Canning and Lord Sidmouth agreed to settle 
the matter, and over the coffin the debt was paid. 

Poor corpse ! was it worth ;^Soo — diseased, rotting as it 
was, and about to be given for nothing to mother earth? Was 
it worth the pomp of the splendid funeral and the grand hypo- 
crisy of grief with which it was borne to Westminster Abbey? 
Was not rather the wretched old man, while he yet struggled 
on in life, worth this outlay, worth this show of sympathy ? 



39^ TJie Stories fixed on Sheridan. 

F0II7 j not folly only — but a lie ! What recked the dead of 
the four noble pall-bearers — the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of 
Lauderdale, Earl Mulgrave, and the Bishop of London ? What 
good was it to him to be follovred by two royal highnesses — the 
Dukes of York and Sussex — by two marquises, seven earls, 
three viscounts, five lords, a Canning, a lord mayor, and a whole 
regiment of honourables and right honourables, who now wore 
the livery of grief, when they had let him die in debt, in want, 
and in misery ? Far more, if the dead could feel, must he have 
been grateful for the honester tears of those two untitled men, 
who had really befriended him to the last hour and never aban- 
doned him, Mr. Rogers and Dr. Bain. But peace; let him 
pass with nodding plumes and well-dyed horses to the great 
Walhalla, and amid the dust of many a poet let the poet's dust 
find rest and honour, secure at last from the hand of the bailiff. 
There was but one nook unoccupied in Poet's Corner, and there 
they laid him. A simple marble was afforded by another friend 
without a title — Peter Moore. 

To a life like Sheridan's it is almost impossible to do justice 
in so narrow a space as I have here. He is one of those men 
who, not to be made out a whit better or worse than they are, 
demand a careful investigation of all their actions, or reported 
actions — a careful sifting of all the evidence for or against 
them, and a careful weeding of all the anecdotes told of them. 
This requires a separate biography. To give a general idea of 
the man, we must be content to give that which he inspired in 
a general acquaintance. Many of his 'mots,' and more of the 
stories about him, may have been invented for him, but they 
would scarcely have been fixed on Sheridan, if they had not 
fitted more or less his character : I have therefore given them. 
I might have given a hundred more, but I have let alone those 
anecdotes which did not seem to illustrate the character of the 
man. Many another good story is told of him, and we must 
content ourselves with one or two. Take one that is character- 
istic of his love of fun. 

Sheridan is accosted by an elderly gentleman, who has for- 
gotten the name of a street to which he wants to go, and who 
informs him precisely that it is an out-of-the-way name. 



Extempore Wit and Inveterate Talkers, 399 

* Perhaps, sir, you mean John Street ?' says Sherry, all in- 
nocence. 

' No, an unusual name.' 

' It can't be Charles Street ?' 

Impatience on the part of the old gentleman. 

* King Street ?' suggests the cruel wit. 

* I tell you, sir, it is a street with a very odd name !' 

* Bless me, is it Queen Street ?' 
Irritation on the part of the (old gentleman. 

* It must be Oxford Street ?' cries Sheridan as if inspired. 

^ Sir, I repeat,' very testily, ^ that it is a very odd name. 
Every one knows Oxford Street !' 
Sheridan appears to be thinking. 

* An odd name ! Oh ! ah ! just so; Piccadilly, of course?' 
Old gentleman bounces away in disgust. 

' Well, sir,' Sheridan calls after him, ' I envy you your ad- 
mirable memory !' 

His wit was said to have been prepared, like his speeches, 
and he is even reported to have carried his book of mots in 
his pocket, as a young lady of the middle class might, but sel- 
dom does, carry her book of etiquette into a party. But some 
of his wit was no doubt extempore. 

When arrested for non-attendance to a call in the House, 
soon after the change of ministry, he exclaimed, ' How hard to 
be no sooner out of office than into custody !' 

He was not an inveterate talker, like Macaulay, Sydney 
Smith, or Jeffrey: he seems rather to have aimed at a strik- 
ing effect in all that he said. When found tripping he had a 
clever knack of getting out of the difficulty. In the Hastings 
speech he complimented Gibbon as a ' luminous' writer ; ques- 
tioned on this, he replied archly, ^ I said 77^- luminous.' 

I cannot afford to be voluminous on Sheridan, and so I quit 
him. 




BEAU BRUM M ELL. 




Two popular Sciences. — 'Buck Brummell' at Eton. — Investing his Capital. — 
Young Cornet Brummell. — The Beau's Studio. — The Toilet. — 'Creasing 
Down.' — Devotion to Dress. — A Great Gentleman. — Anecdotes of Brum- 
mell. — ' Don't forget, Brum : Goose at Four !' — Offers of Intimacy resented. 
— Never in love. — Brummell out Hunting. — Anecdote of Sheridan and 
Brummell. — The Beau's Poetical Efforts. — The Value of a Crooked Six- 
pence. — The Breach with the Prince of Wales. — 'Who's your Fat Friend?' 
— The Climax is reached. — The Black-mail of Calais. — George the Greater 
and George the Less. — An Extraordinary Step. — Down the Hill of Life. — 
A Miserable Old Age. — In the Hospice Du Bon Sauveur. — O Young Men 
of this Age, be warned ! 

IT is astonishing to what a number of insignificant 
things high art has been appHed, and with what suc- 
cess. It is the vice of high civihzation to look for 
it and reverence it, where a ruder age would only laugh at its 
eraployment. Crime and cookery, especially, have been raised 
into sciences of late, and the professors of both received the 
amount of honour due to their acquirements. Who would be 
so naive as to sneer at the author of ' The Art of Dining ?' or 
who so ungentlemanly as not to pity the sorrows of a pious 
baronet, whose devotion to the noble art of appropriation was 
shamefully rewarded with accommodation gratis on board one of 
Her Majesty's transport-ships ? The disciples of Ude have 
left us the literary results of their studies, and one at least, the 
graceful Alexis Soyer, is numbered among our public bene- 
factors. We have little doubt that as the art, vulgarly called 
* embezzlement,' becomes more and more fashionable, as it does 
every day, we shall have a work on the ^ Art of Appropriation.' 
It is a pity that Brummell looked down upon literature : poor 
literature ! it had a hard struggle to recover the slight, for we 
are convinced there is not a work more wanted than the * Art 



Two Popular Sciences. 401 

of Dressing,' and * George the Less' was almost the last pro- 
fessor of that elaborate science. 

If the maxim, that * whatever is worth doing at all is worth 
doing well/ hold good, Beau Brummell must be regarded in the 
light of a great man. That dressing is worth doing at all, 
everybody but a Fiji Islander seems to admit, for everybody 
does it. If, then, a man succeeds in dressing better than any- 
body else, it follows that he is entitled to the most universal 
admiration. ^ 

But there was another object to which this great man conde- 
scended to apply the principles of high art — I mean affectation. 
How admirably he succeeded in this his life will show. But 
can we doubt that he is entitled to our greatest esteem and 
heartiest gratitude for the studies he pursued with unremitting 
patience in these two useful branches, when we find that a prince 
of the blood delighted to honour, and the richest, noblest, and 
most distinguished men of half a century ago were proud to 
know him ? We are writing, then, of no common man, nO mere 
beau, but of the greatest professor of two of the most popular 
sciences — Dress and Affectation. Let us speak with reverence 
of this wonderful genius. 

George Brummell was ^ a self-made man.' That is, all that 
nature, the tailors, stags, and padding had not made of him, he 
made for himself — his name, his fame, his fortune, and his 
friends — and all these were great. The author of ' Self-help' 
has most unaccountably omitted all mention of him, and most 
erroneously, for if there ever was a man who helped himself, 
and no one else, it was, ^ very sincerely yours, George Brummell.' 

The founder of the noble house of Brummell, the grand- 
father of our hero, was either a treasury porter, or a confectioner, 
or something else.''' At any rate he let lodgings in Bury Street, 
and whether from the flict that his wife did not purloin her 
lodgers' tea and sugar, or from some other cause, he managed 
to ingratiate himself with one of them — who afterwards became 
Lord Liverpool — so tlioroughly, that through his influence he 
oljtained for his son the post of Private Secretary to Lord 

* Mr. Jesse says that the Beau's grandfiither was a servant of Mr. Charles 
Monson, brother to the first Lord Monson. 

26 



402 ' Buck BrummelV at Eton, 

North. Nothing could have been more fortunate, except, per- 
haps, the son's next move, which was to take in marriage the 
daughter of Richardson, the owner of a well-known lottery- 
office. Between the lottery of office and the lottery of love, 
Brummell pere managed to make a very good fortune. At his 
death he left as much as ;2^65,ooo to be divided among his 
three children — Raikes says as much as ;^3 0,000 a-piece — 
so that the Beau, if not a fool, ought never to have been a 
pauper. 

George Bryan Brummell, the second son of this worthy man, 
honoured by his birth the 7th of June, 1778. No anecdotes 
of his childhood are preserved, except that he once cried be- 
cause he could not eat any more damson tart. In later years 
he would probably have thought damson tart ^ very vulgar.' 
He first turns up at Eton at the age of twelve, and even there 
commences his distinguished career, and is known as ^Buck^ 
Brummell.' The boy showed himself decidedly father to the 
man here. Master George was not vulgar enough, nor so 
imprudent, it may be added, as to fight, row, or play cricket, 
but he distinguished himself by the introduction of a gold 
buckle in the white stock, by never being flogged, and by his 
ability in toasting cheese. We do not hear much of his 
classical attainments. 

The very gentlemanly youth was in due time passed on to 
Oriel College, Oxford. Here he distinguished himself by a 
studied indifference to college discipline and an equal disHke 
to studies. He condescended to try for the Newdigate Prize 
poem, but his genius leaned far more to the turn of a coat- 
collar than that of a verse, and, unhappily for the British poets, 
their ranks were not to be dignified by the addition of this 
illustrious man. The Newdigate was given to another ; and so, 
to punish Oxford, the competitor left.it and poetry together, 
after having adorned the old quadrangle of Oriel for less than 
a year. 

He was now a boy of seventeen, and a very fine boy, too. 
To judge from a portrait taken in later life, he was not 
strictly handsome ; but he is described as tall, well built, and 
of a slight and graceful figure. Added to this, he had got 



Investing his Capital, 403 

from Eton and Oxford, if not much learning, many a well-bom 
friend, and he was toady enough to cultivate those of better, 
and to dismiss those of less distinction. H6 was, through 
life, a celebrated 'cutter,' and Brummell's cut was as much 
admired — by all but the cuttee — as Brummell's coat. Then he 
had some ;^2 5,000 as capital and how could he best invest it? 
He consulted no stockbroker on this weighty point ; he did 
not even buy a shilling book of advice such as we have seen 
advertised for those who do tiot know what to do with their 
money. The question was answered in a moment by the 
young worldling of sixteen : he would enter a crack regiment 
and invest his guineas in the thousand per cents, of fashionable 
life. 

His namesake, the Regent, was now thirty-two, and had 
spent those years of his life in acquiring the honorary title of 
the ' first gentleman of Europe ' by every act of folly, debauch, 
dissipation, and degradation which a prince can conveniently 
perpetrate. He was the hero of London society, which adored 
and backbit him alternately, and he was precisely the man 
whom the boy Brummell would worship. The Regent was 
colonel of a famous regiment of fops — the loth Hussars. It 
was the most expensive, the most impertinent, the best-dressed, 
the worst-moralled regiment in the British army. Its officers, 
many of them titled, all more or less distinguished in the trying 
campaigns of London seasons, were the intimates of the 
Prince-Colonel. Brummell aspired to a cornetcy in this brilliant 
regiment, and obtained it ; nor that alone ; he secured, by his 
manners, or his dress, or his impudence, the favour and com- 
panionship — friendship we cannot say — of the prince who 
commanded it. 

By this step his reputation was made, and it was only 
necessar}' to keep it up. He had an immense fund of good 
nature, and, as long as his money lasted, of good spirits, too. 
Good sayings — that is, witty if not wise — are recorded of him, 
and his friends pronounce him a charming companion. Intro- 
duced, therefore, into the highest circles in England, he could 
scarcely fail to succeed. Young Cornet Brummell became a 
great favourite with the fair. 

26 — 2 



404 Young Cornet DmLmmell. 

His rise in the regiment was of course rapid: in three years 
he was at the head of a troop. The onerous duties of a mihtary 
hfe, which vacillated between Brighton and London, and con- 
sisted chiefly in making oneself agreeable in the mess-room, 
were too much for our hero. He neglected parade, or arrived 
too late : it was such a bore to have to dress in a hurry. It 
is said that he knew the troop he commanded only by the 
peculiar nose of one of the men, and that when a transfer of 
men had once been made, rode up to the wrong troop, and 
supported his mistake by pointing to the nose in question. 
No fault, however, was found with the Regent's favourite, and 
Brummell might have risen to any rank if he could have sup- 
ported the terrific labour of dressing for parade. Then, too, 
there came wars and rumours of wars, and our gallant captain 
shuddered at the vulgarity of shedding blood : the supply of 
smelling-salts would never have been liberal enough to keep 
him from fainting on the battle-field. It is said, too, that the 
regiment was ordered to Manchester. Could anything be more 
gross or more ill-bred ? The idea of figuring before the wives 
and daughters of cotton-spinners was too fearful ; and from 
one cause or another our brave young captain determined to 
retire, which he did in 1798. 

It was now, therefore, that he commenced the profession 
of a beau, and as he is the Prince of Beaux, as his patron was 
the Beau of Princes, and as his fame has spread to France 
and Germany, \i only as the inventor of the trouser; and as 
there is no man who on getting up in the morning does not 
put on his clothes with more or less reflection as to whether 
they are the right ones to put on, and as beaux have existed 
since the days of the emperor of beaux, Alexander the Mace- 
donian, and will probably exist to all time, let us rejoice in the 
high honour of being permitted to describe how this illustrious 
genius clothed his poor flesh, and made the most of what God 
had given him — a body and legs. 

The private life of Brummell would in itself serve as a book 
of manners and habits. The two were his profoundest study ; 
but, alas ! his impudence marred the former, and the latter 
can scarcely be imitated in the pre^e.nt day, §till as a great 



The Toilet, 405 

example he is yet invaluable, and must be described in all 
detail. 

His morning toilette was a most elaborate affair. Never was 
Brummell guilty of deshabille. Like a true man of business, he 
devoted the best and earliest hours — and many of them too — 
to his profession, namely^dressing. His dressing-room was a 
studio, in which he daily compared that elaborate portrait of 
George Brummell which was tp be exhibited for a few hours in 
the club-rooms and drawing-rooms of town, only to be taken 
to pieces again, and again made up for the evening. Charles 
I. delighted to resort of a morning to the studio of Vandyck, 
and to watch his favourite artist's progress. The Regent George 
was no less devoted to art, for we are assured by Mr. Raikes 
that he often visited his favourite beau in the morning to watch 
his toilet, and would sometimes stay so late that he would send 
his horses away, insisting on Brummell giving him a quiet din- 
ner, * which generally ended in a deep potation.' 

There are, no doubt, many fabulous myths floating about 
concerning this illustrious man ; and his biographer. Captain 
Jesse, seems anxious to defend him from the absurd stories of 
French writers, who asserted that he employed two glovers to 
covers his hands, to one of whom were intrusted the thumbs, 
to the other the fingers and hand, and three barbers to dress 
his hair, while his boots were polished with champagne, his 
cravats designed by a celebrated portrait painter, and so forth. 
These may be pleasant inventions, but Captain Jesse's own 
account of his toilet, even when the Beau was broken, and 
living in elegant poverty abroad, is quite absurd enough to 
render excusable the ingenious exaggerations of the foreign 
writer. 

The hatterie de toilette^ we are told, was of silver, and included 
a spitting-dish, for its owner said *he could not spit into clay.' 
Napoleon shaved himself, but Brummell was not quite great 
enough to do that, just as my Lord So-and-so walks to cliurch 
on Sunday, while his neighbour, the Birmingham millionaire, 
can only arrive there in a chariot and pair. 

His abhitions took no less than two whole hours ! What 
knowledge miglit have been gained, what good done in the 



4o6 ^ Creasing Down! 

time he devoted to rubbing his lovely person with a hair-glove ! 
Cleanliness was, in fact, Brummell's religion ; perhaps because 
it is generally set down as ^ next to godliness,' a proximity with 
which the Beau was quite satisfied, for he never attempted to 
pass on to that next stage. Poor fool, he might rub every 
particle of moisture off the skin of his body — he might be clean 
as a kitten — ^but he could not and did not purify his mind with 
all this friction ; and the man who would have fainted to see a 
black speck upon his shirt, was not at all shocked at the in- 
decent conversation in which he and his companions occasionally 
indulged. 

The body cleansed, the face had next to be brought up as 
near perfection as nature would allow. With a small looking- 
glass in one hand, and tweezers in the other, he carefully re- 
moved the tiniest hairs that he could discover on his cheeks or 
chin, enduring the pain like a martyr. 

Then came the shirt, which was in his palmy days changed 
three times a day, and then in due course the great business 
of the cravat. Captain Jesse's minute account of the process 
of tying this can surely be relied on, and presents one of the 
most ludicrous pictures of folly and vanity that can be imagined. 
Had Brummell never lived, and a novelist or play-writer de- 
scribed the toilet which Captain Jesse affirms to have been his 
daily achievement, he would have had the critics about him 
with the now common phrase — ' This book is a tissue, not only 
of improbabilities, but of actual impossibilities.' The collar, 
then, was so large, that in its natural condition it rose high 
above the wearer's head, and some ingenuity was required to 
reduce it by delicate folds to exactly that height which the 
Beau judged to be correct. Then came the all-majestic white 
neck-tie, a foot in breadth. It is not to be supposed that Brum- 
mell had the neck of a swan or a camel — far from it. The 
worthy fool had now to undergo, with admirable patience, the 
mysterious process known to our papas as ' creasing down.' 
The head was thrown back, as if ready for a dentist ; the stiff 
white tie applied to the throat, and gradually wrinkled into half 
its actual breadth by the slow downward movement of the chin. 
When all was done, we can imagine that comfort was sacrificed 



Devotion to Dress, 407 

to elegance, as it was then considered, and that the sudden 
appearance of Venus herself could not have induced the de- 
luded individual to turn his head in a hurry. 

It is scarcely profitable to follow this lesser deity into all the 
details of his self-adornment. It must suffice to say that he 
affected an extreme neatness and simplicity of dress, every item 
of which was studied and discussed for many an hour. In the 
mornings he was still guilty of hessians and pantaloons, or 
* tops ' and buckskins, with a Jilue coat and buff waistcoat. The 
costume is not so ancient, but that one may tumble now and 
then on a country squire who glories in it and denounces us 
juveniles as ^ bears ' for want of a similar precision. Poor 
Brummell, he cordially hated the country squires, and would 
have wanted rouge for a week if he could have dreamed that 
his pet attire would, some fifty years later, be represented only 
by one of that class which he was so anxious to exclude from 
Watier's. 

But it was in the evening that he displayed his happy in- 
vention of the trouser, or rather its introduction from Germany. 
Thfs article he wore very tight to the leg, and buttoned over 
the ankle, exactly as we see it in old prints of ' the fashion.' 
Then came the wig, and on that the hat. It is a vain and 
thankless task to defend Brummell from the charge of being a 
dandy. If one proof of his devotion to dress were wanted, it 
would be the fact that this hat, once stuck jauntily on one side 
of the wig, was never removed in the street even to salute a 
lady — so that, inasmuch as he sacrificed his manners to his 
appearance, he may be fairly set down as a fop. 

The perfect artist could not be expected to be charitable to 
the less successful. Dukes and princes consulted him on the 
make of their coats, and discussed tailors with him with as 
much solemnity as divines might dispute on a mystery of 
religion. Brummell did not spare them. ^ Bedford,' said he, 
to the duke of that name, fingering a new garment which his 
grace had submitted to his inspection, ^ do you call this thing a 
coat ?' Again, meeting a noble acquaintance who wore shoes 
in the morning, he stopped and asked him what he had got 
upon his feet. ^ Oh ! shoes are thc},' (juoth he, with a well- 



4o8 A Great Gentleman. 

bred sneer, 'I thought they were slippers.' He was even ashamed 
of his own brother, and when the latter came to town, begged him 
to keep to the back streets till his new clothes were sent home. 
Well might his friend the Regent say, that he was ^a mere 
tailor's dummy to hang clothes upon.' 

But in reality Brummell was more. He had some sharpness 
and some taste. But the former was all brought out in sneers, 
and the latter in snuff-boxes. His whole mind could have been 
put into one of these. He had a splendid collection of them, 
and was famous for the grace with which he opened the lid of 
his box with the thumb of the hand that carried it, while he 
delicately took his pinch with two fingers of the other. This 
and his bow were his chief acquirements, and his reputation for 
manners was based on the distinction of his manner. He 
could not drive in a public conveyance, but he could be rude 
to a well-meaning lady ; he never ate vegetables — 07ie pea he 
confessed to — but he did not mind borrowing from his friends 
money which he knew he could never return. He was a great 
gentleman, a gentleman of his patron's school — in short, a well- 
dressed snob. But one thing is due to Brummell : he made 
the assumption of being * a gentleman ' so thoroughly ridicu- 
lous that few men of keen sense care now for the title : at 
least, not as a class-distinction. Nor is it to be wondered at ; 
when your tailor's assistant is a ^ gentleman,' and would be 
mightily disgusted at being called anything else, you, with your 
indomitable pride of caste, can scarcely care for the patent. 

Brummell's claim to the title was based on his walk, his coat, 
his cravat, and the grace with which he indulged, as Captain 
Jesse delightfully calls it, *the nasal pastime' of taking snuff, 
all the rest was impudence ; and many are the anecdotes — most 
of them familiar as household words — which are told of his im- 
pertinence. The story of Mrs. Johnson-Thompson is one of 
those oft-told tales, which, from having become Joe Millers, 
have gradually passed out of date and been almost forgotten. 
Two rival party-givers rejoiced in the aristocratic names of 
Johnson and Thompson. The former lived near Finsbury, the 
latter near Grosvenor Square, and Mrs. Thompson was some- 
how sufficiently fashionable to exoect the Regent himself at her 



A necdote of Bj^itnimclL 409 

assemblies. Brummell among other impertinences, was fond of 
going where he was not invited or wanted. The two rivals 
gave a ball on the same evening, and a card was sent to the 
Beau by her of Finsbury. He chose to go to the Grosvenor 
Square house, in hopes of meeting the Regent, then his foe. 
Mrs. Thompson was justly disgusted, and with a vulgarity quite 
deserved by the intruder, told him he was not invited. The 
Beau made a thousand apologias, hummed, hawed, and drew a 
card from his pocket. It w^as the rival's invitation, and was in- 
dignantly denounced. ^ Dear me, how very unfortunate,' said 
the Beau, 'but you know Johnson and Thompson — I mean 
Thompson and Johnson are so very much alike. Mrs. Johnson- 
Thompson, I wish you a very good evening.' 

Perhaps there is no vulgarity greater than that of rallying 
people on their surnames, but our exquisite gentleman had not 
wit enough to invent one superior to such a puerile amusement. 
Thus, on one occasion, he woke up at three in the morning a 
certain Mr. Snodgrass, and when the worthy put his head out of 
the window in alarm, said quietly, ^ Pray, sir, is your name Snod- 
grass ?' — * Yes, sir, it is Snodgrass.' ' Snodgrass — Snodgrass — 
it is a very singular name. Good-bye, Mr. S^iodgrass.'' There 
was more wit in his remark to Poodle Byng, a well-known puppy, 
whom he met one day driving in the Park with a French dog 
in his curricle. 'Ah,' cried the Beau, 'how d'ye do, Byng? a 
family vehicle, I see.' 

It seems incredulous to modern gentlemen that such a man 
should have been tolerated even at a club. Take, for instance, 
his vulgar treatment of Lord Mayor Combe, whose name we 
still see with others over many a public-house in London, and 
who was then a most prosperous brewer and thriving gambler. 
At Brookes' one evening the Beau and the Brewer were playing 
at the same table, ' Come, Mash-tub^ cried the ' gentleman,' 
'what do you set?' Mash-tub unresentingly set a pony, and 
the Beau won twelve of him in succession. Pocketing his cash, 
he made him a bow, and exclaimed, ' Thank you. Alderman, in 
future I shall drink no porter but yours.' But Combe was 
worthy of his namesake, Shakspere's friend, and answered vety 



410 * Dont Forget^ Brum — Goose at Four ! ' 

aptly, ^ I wish, sir, that every other blackguard in London would 
tell me the same/ 

Then again, after ruining a young fool of fortune at the 
tables, and being reproached by the youth's father for leading 
his son astray, he replied with charming affectation, ' Why, sir, 
I did all I could for him. I once gave him my arm all the 
way from White's to Brookes' !' 

When Brummeli really wanted a dinner, while at Calais, he 
could not give up his impertinence for the sake of it. Lord 
Westmoreland called on him, and, pehaps out of compassion, 
asked him to dine at three d clock with him. ' Your Lordship is 
very kind,' said the Beau, ^but really I could not feed at such 
an hour.' Sooner or later he was glad to feed with any one who 
was toady enough to ask him. He was once placed in a de- 
lightfully awkward position from having accepted the invitation 
of a charitable but vulgar-looking Britisher at Calais. He was 
walking with Lord Sefton, when the individual passed and 
nodded familiarly. ^ Who's your friend, Brummeli ?' — ^ Not 
mine, he must be bowing to you.' But presently the man passed 
again, and this time was cruel enough to exclaim, ^ Don't for- 
get. Brum, don't forget — goose at four !' The poor Beau must 
have wished the earth to open under him. He was equally im- 
prudent in the way in which he treated an old acquaintance who 
arrived at the town to which he had retreated, and of whom he 
was fool enough to be ashamed. He generally took away their 
characters summarily, but on one occasion was frightened almost 
out of his wits by being called to account for this conduct. An 
officer who had lost his nose in an enga.gement in the Penin- 
sula, called on him, and in very strong terms requested to know 
why the Beau had reported that he was a retired hatter. His 
manner alarmed the rascal, who apologized, and protested that 
there must be a mistake ; he had never said so. The officer 
retired, and as he was going, Brummeli added : ^ Yes, it must 
be a mistake, for now I think of it, I never dealt with a hatter 
without a nose.' 

So much for the good breeding of this friend of George IV. 
and the Duke of York. 

His affectation was quite as great as his impudence : and he 



Offers of Intimacy Resettled, 4 ^ 3 

won the reputation of fastidiousness — nothing gives more phad 
tige — by dint of being openly rude. No hospitaUty or kifias 
ness melted him, when he thought he could gain a march. ^ 
one dinner, not liking the champagne, he called to the servant 
to give him ^ some more of that cider :' at another, to which he 
was invited in days when a dinner was a charity to him, after 
helping himself to a wing of capon, and trying a morsel of it, 
he took it up in his napkin, called to his dog — he was generally 
accompanied by a puppy, eveiTto parties, as if one at a time 
were not enough — and presenting it to him, said aloud, ^ Here, 
Atons, try if you can get your teeth through that, for I'm d — d 
if I can !' 

To the last he resented offers of intimacy from those whom 
he considered his inferiors, and as there are ladies enough every- 
where, he had ample opportunity for administering rebuke to 
those who pressed into his society. On one occasion he was 
sauntering with a friend at Caen under the window of a lady who 
longed for nothing more than to have the great arbiter elegan- 
tiarum at her house. When seeing him beneath, she put her 
head out, and called out to him, ' Good evening, Mr. Brummell, 
won't you come up and take tea ?' The Beau looked up with 
extreme severity expressed on his face, and replied, ' Madam, 
you take medicine — you take a walk — you take a liberty — ^but 
you drink tea,' and walked on, having, it may be hoped, cured 
the lady of her admiration. 

In the life of such a man there could not of course be much 
striking incident. He lived for ' society,' and the whole of his 
story consists in his rise and fall in that narrow world. Though 
admired and sought after by the women — so much so that at his 
death his chief assets were locks of hair, the only things he 
could not have turned into money — he never married. Wedlock 
might have sobered him, and made him a more sensible, if not 
more respectable member of society, but his advances towards 
matrimony never brought him to the crisis. He accounted for 
one rejection in his usual way. 'What could I do, my dear 
fellar^ he lisped, ' when I actually saw Lady Mary eat cabbage ?' 
At another time he is said to have induced some deluded young 
creature to elope with him from a ball-room, but managed the 



^jQ Nei-er in Love, 

aptH ^^ '^'> ^^^^^ ^^^ lovers (?) were caught in the next street, 
^^\. the affair came to an end. He wrote rather ecstatic love- 
•tters to Lady Marys and Miss s, gave married ladies ad- 
vice on the treatment of their spouses and was tender to vari- 
ous widows, but though he went on in this way through life, he 
was never, it would seem^ in love, from the mere fact that he was 
incapable of passion. 

Perhaps he was too much of a woman to care much for 
women. He was certainly egregiously effeminate. About the 
only creatures he could love were poodles. When one of his 
dogs, from over-feeding, was taken ill, he sent for two dog- 
doctors, and consulted very gravely with them on the remedies to 
be applied. The canine physicians came to the conclusion that 
she must be bled. * Bled !' said Brummell, in horror ; ' I shall 
leave the room : inform me when the operation is over.' When 
the dog died, he shed tears — probably the only ones he had 
shed since childhood : and though at that time receiving 
money from many an old friend in England, complained, with 
touching melancholy, ' that he had lost the only friend he had T 
His grief lasted three whole days, during which he shut himself 
up, and would see no one ; but we are not told that he ever 
thus mourned over any human being. 

His effeminacy was also shown in his dislike to field-sports. 
His shooting exploits were confined to the murder of a pair of 
pet pigeons perched on a roof, while he confessed, as regards 
hunting, that it was a bore to get up so early in the morning 
only to have one's boots and leathers splashed by galloping 
farmers. However, hunting was a fashion, and Brummell must 
needs appear to hunt. He therefore kept a stud of hunters in 
his better days, near Belvoir, the Duke of Rutland's, where he 
was a frequent visitor, and if there was a near meet, would ride 
out in pink and tops to see the hounds break cover, follow 
through a few gates, and return to the more congenial atmo- 
sphere of the drawing-room. He, however, condescended to 
bring his taste to bear on the hunting-dress ; and, it is said, 
introduced white tops instead of the ancient mahoganies. That 
he coidd ride there seems reason to believe, but it is equally 
probable that he was afraid to do so. His valour was certainly 



Anecdote of Slier idan and Bricmmell. 413 

composed almost entirely of its ^ better part,' and indeed had 
so much prudence in it that it may be doubted if there was 
any of the original stock left. Once when he had been taking 
away somebody's character, the ^friend' of the maligned gen- 
tleman entered his apartment, and very menacingly demanded 
satisfaction for his principal, unless an apology were tendered 

* in five minutes.' ^ Five minutes !' answered the exquisite, as 
pale as death, *five seconds, or sooner if you like.' 

Brummell was no fool, in spite of his follies. He had talents 
of a mediocre kind, if he had chosen to make a better use of 
them. Yet the general opinion was not in favour of his wisdom. 
He quite deserved Sheridan's cool satire for his affectation, if 
not for his want of mind. 

The Wit and the Beau met one day at Charing Cross, and it 
can well be imagined that the latter was rather disgusted at being 
seen so far east of St. James's Street, and drawled out to Sheri- 
dan, — 'Sherry, my dear boy, don't mention that you saw me in 
this filthy part of the town, though, perhaps, I am rather severe, 
for his Grace of Northumberland resides somewhere about this 
spot, if I don't mistake. The fact is, my dear boy, I have 
been in the d d City, to the Bank : I wish they would re- 
move it to the West End, for re-all-y it is quite a bore to go 
to such a place \ more particularly as one cannot be seen in 
one's own equipage beyond Somerset House,' etc. etc. etc. in 
the Brummellian style. 

' Nay, my good fellow,' was the answer to this peroration, 

* travelling from the East ? impossible !' 

* Why, my dear boy, why ?' 

* Because the wise men came from the East.' 
' So, then, sa-ar — you think me a fool ?' 

* By no means ; I know you to be one,' quoth Sherry, and 
turned away. It is due to both the parties to this anecdote 
to state that it is quite apocryphal, and rests on the slenderest 
authority. However, whether fool or not, Brummell has one 
certain, though small, claim upon certain small readers. Were 
you born in a modern generation, when scraps of poetry were 
forbidden in your nursery, and no other pabuknn was offered 
to your infant stomacli, but the rather dull biographies of rathei 



414 The Beau's Poetical Efforts. 

dull, though very upright men ? — if so, I pity you. Old airs of 
a jaunty jig-like kind are still haunting the echoes of my brain. 
Among them is — 

* The butterfly was a gentleman, 
Which nobody can refute : 
He left his lady-love at home, 
And roamed in a velvet suit.' 

I remember often to have ruminated over this character of 
an innocent, and, I believe, calumniated, insect. He was a 
gentleman, and the consequences thereof were twofold : he 
abandoned the young woman who had trusted her affections to 
him, and attired his person in a complete costume of the best 
Lyons silk-velvet, not the proctor's velvet, which Theodore felt 
with thumb and finger, impudently asking *how much a yard?* 
I secretly resolved to do the same thing as Mr. Butterfly when 
I came of age. But the said Mr. Butterfly had a varied and 
somewhat awful history, all of which was narrated in various 
ditties chanted by my nurse. I could not quite join in her vivid 
assertion that she would 

* be a butterfly, 

Born in a bower. 
Christened in a tea-pot, 
And dead in an hour.* 

iEtat. four, life is dear, and the idea of that early demise 
was far from welcome to me. I privily agreed that I would not 
be a butterfly. But there was no end to the history of this 
very inconstant insect in our nursery lore. We didn't care a 
drop of honey for Dr. Watts' s * Busy Bee ;' we infinitely pre- 
ferred the account — not in the 'Morning Post' — of the * But- 
terfly's Ball' and the 'Grasshopper's Feast ;' and few, perhaps, 
have ever given children more pleasures of imagination than 
William Roscoe, its author. There were some amongst us, how- 
ever, who were already being weaned to a knowledge of life's 
mysterious changes, and we sought the third volume of the ro- 
mance of the flitting gaudy thing in a little poem called 'The 
Butterfly's Funeral.' 

Little dreamed we, when in our prettly little song-books we 
saw the initial ' B.' at the bottom of these verses, that a real 



The Value of a Crooked Sixpence, 41? 

human butterfly had written them, and that they conveyed a 
solemn prognostication of a fate that was not his. Little we 
dreamed, as we lisped out the verses, that the ' gentleman who 
roamed in a' not velvet but ^ plum-coloured suit,' according to 
Lady Hester Stanhope, was the illustrious George Brummell. 
The Beau wrote these trashy little rhymes — pretty in their way 
— and, since I was once a child, and learnt them off by heart, 
I will not cast a stone at them. Brummell indulged in such 
trifling poetizing, but never went further. It is a pity he did not 
wTite his memoirs ; they would have added a valuable page to 
the history of * Vanity Fair.* 

Brummell's London glory lasted from 1798 to 18 16. His 
chief club was Watier's. It was a superb assemblage of game- 
sters and fops — ^knaves and fools ; and it is difficult to say which 
element predominated. For a time Brummell was monarch 
there ; but his day of reckoning came at last. Byron and 
Moore, Sir Henry Mildmay and Mr. Pierrepoint, were among 
the members. Play ran high there, and Brummell once won 
nearly as much as his squandered patrimony, ;^2 6,000. Of 
course he not only lost it again, but much more — indeed his 
whole capital. It was after some heavy loss that he was walk- 
ing home through Berkeley Street with Mr. Raikes, when he 
saw something glittering in the gutter, picked it up, and found 
it to be a crooked sixpence. Like all small-minded men, he 
had a great fund of superstition, and he wore the talisman of 
good luck for some time. For two years, we are told, after this 
finding of treasure-trove, success attended him in play — macao, 
the very pith of hazard, was the chief game at Watier's — and 
he attributed it all to the sixpence. At last he lost it, and 
luck turned against him. So goes the story. It is probably 
much more easily accountable. Few men played honestly in 
those days without losing to the dishonest, and we have no 
reason to charge the Beau with mal-practice. However this 
may be, his losses at play first brought about his ruin. The 
Jews were, of course, resorted to ; and if Brummell did not, 
like Charles Fox, keep a Jerusalem Chamber, it was only be- 
cause the sum total of his fortune was pretty well known to the 
money-lenders. 



41 6 The Breach with the Prince of Wales, 

' Then came the change, the check, the fall : 
Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. 
There is one remedy for all.' 

This remedy was the crossing of the Channel, a crossing 
kept by beggars, who levy a heavy toll on those who pass 
over it. 

The decline of the Beau was rapid, but not without its ec/at. 
A breach with his royal patron led the way. It is presumed 
that every reader of these volumes has heard the famous story 
of ' Wales, ring the bell !' but not all may know its particulars. 

A deep impenetrable mystery hangs over this story. Perhaps 
some German of the twenty-first century — some future Giffard, 
or who not — will put his wits to work to solve the riddle. In 
very sooth it ne vaut pas la chandelle. A quarrel did take 
place between George the Prince and George the Less, but of 
its causes no living mortal is cognizant : we can only give the 
received versions. It appears, then, that dining with H. R. H. 
the Prince of Wales, Master Brummell asked him to ring the 
bell. Considering the intimacy between them, and that the 
Regent often sacrificed his dignity to his amusement, there was 
nothing extraordinary in this, But it is added that the Prince 
did ring the bell in question — unhappy bell to jar so between 
two such illustrious friends ! — and when the servant came, or- 
dered ' Mr. Brummell's carriage !' Another version palms off 
the impertinence on a drunken midshipman, who, being related 
to the Comptroller of the Household, had been invited to 
dinner by the Regent. Another yet states that Brummell, being 
asked to ring the said bell, replied, ' Your Royal Highness is 
close to it.' No one knows the truth of the legend, any more 
than whether Homer was a man or a myth. It surely does not 
matter. The friends quarrelled, and perhaps it was time they 
should do so, for they had never improved one another's 
morals ; but it is only fair to the Beau to add that he always 
denied the whole affair, and that he himself gave as the cause 
of the quarrel his own sarcasms on the Prince's increasing cor- 
pulency, and his resemblance to Mrs. Fitzherbert's porter, * Big 
Ben.' Certainly some praise is due to the Beau for the sang 
froid v^iih which he appeared to treat the matter, though in 



^ WMs yoiLv Fat Fiend T 417 

reality dreadfully cut up about it. He lounged about, made 
amusing remarks on his late friend and patron, swore he would 
^ cut' him, and in short behaved with his usual aploirih. The 
^ Wales, ring the bell,' was sufficient proof of his impudence, 
but * Who's your fat friend ?' was really good. 

It is well known, in all probability, that George IV. contem- 
plated with as much disgust and horror the increasing rotundity 
of his * presence' as ever a maiden lady of a certain age did her 
first grey hair. Soon afte^he bell affairf the royal beau met his 
former friend in St. James's Street, and resolved to cut him. 
This was attacking Brummell with his own pet weapon, but not 
with success. Each antagonist was leaning on the arm of a 
friend. ' Jack Lee,' who was thus supporting the Beau, was 
intimate with the Prince, who, to make the cut the more marked, 
stopped and talked to him without taking the slightest notice 
of Brummell. After a time both parties moved on, and then 
came the moment of triumph and revenge. It was sublime ! 
Turning round half way, so that his words could not fail to be 
heard by the retreating Regent, the Beau asked of his companion 
in his usual drawl, ' Well, Jack, who's your fat friend ?' The 
coolness, presumption, and impertinence of the question per- 
haps made it the best thing the Beau ever said, and from that 
time the Prince took care not to risk another encounter with 
him.''^ 

Brummell was scotched rather than killed by the Prince's in- 
difference. He at once resolved to patronise his brother, the 
Duke of York, and found in him a truer friend. The duchess, 
who had a particular fondness for dogs, of which she is said to 
have kept no fewer, at one time, than a hundred, added the 
puppy Brummell to the list, and treated him with a kindness 
in which little condescension was mixed. But neither impu- 
dence nor the blood-royal can keep a man out of debt, espe- 
cially when he plays. The Beau got deeper and deeper into 
the difficulty, and at last some mysterious quarrel about money 
with a gentleman who thenceforward went by the name of Dick 

* Another version, given by Captain Jesse, represents this to have taken place 
at a ball given at the Argyle Rooms in July, 1813, by Lord Alvanley, Sir Hcniy 
Mildmay, Mr. I'ierrepoint, and Mr. Brummell. 

27 



41 8 The Climax is Reached. 

the Dandy-killer, obliged him to think of place and poverty in 
another land. He looked in vain for aid, and among others 
Scrope Davies was written to to lend him ^ two hundred/ ' be- 
cause his money was all in the three per cents.' Scrope replied 
laconically — 

^ My dear George, 

' It is very unfortunate, but viy money is all in the three 
per cents. Yours, 

^S. Davies.' 

It was the last attempt. The Beau went to the opera, as 
usual, and drove away from it clear off to Dover, whence the 
packet took him to safety and slovenliness in the ancient town 
of Calais. His few effects were sold after his departure. Por- 
celaine, buhl, a drawing or two, double-barrelled Mantons (pro- 
bably never used), plenty of old wine, linen, furniture, and a 
few well-bound books, were the Beau's assets. His debts were 
with half the chief tradesmen of the West End and a large 
number of his personal friends. 

The climax is reached : henceforth Master George Bryan 
Brummell goes rapidly and gracefully down the hill of life. 

The position of a Calais beggar was by no means a bad one,' 
if the reduced individual had any claim whatever to distinction. 
A black-mail was sedulously levied by the outcasts and exiles 
of that town on every Englishman who passed through it ; and 
in those days it was customary to pass some short time in this 
entrance of France. The English ' residents' were always on 
the look-out, generally crowding round the packet-boat, and the 
new arrival was sure to be accosted by some old and attached 
friend, who had not seen him for years. Just as Buttons, who 
is always breaking the plates and tumblers, has the invariable 
mode of accounting for his carelessness, ' they fell apart, sir, in 
my 'ands !' so these expatriated Britons had always a tale of 
confidence misplaced — security for a bond — bail for a delin- 
quent, or in short any hard case, which compelled them, much 
against their wills, to rem'ain ' for a period' on the shores of 
J'rance. To such men, whom you had known in seven-guinea 



The Black-mail of Calais. 419 

waistcoats at White's and Watier's, and found in seven-shilling 
coats on the Calais pier, it was impossible to refuse your five- 
pound note, and in time the black-mail of Calais came to 
be reckoned among the established expenses of a Continental 
tour. 

Brummell was a distinguished beggar of this description, and 
managed so adroitly that the new arrivals thought themselves 
obliged by Mr. Brammell'^ acceptance of their donations. The 
man who could not eat cabbages, drive in a hackney-coach, or 
wear less than three shirts a day, was now supported by volun- 
tary contributions, and did not see anything derogatory to a 
gentleman in their acceptance. If Brummell had now turned 
his talents to account ; if he had practised his painting, in 
which he was not altogether despicable ; or his poetry, in which 
he had already had some trifling success : if he had even en- 
gaged himself as a waiter at Quillacq's, or given lessons in the 
art of deportment, his fine friends from town might have cut 
him, but posterity would have withheld its blame. He was a 
beggar of the merriest kind. While he wrote letters to friends 
in England, asking for remittances, and describing his wretched 
condition on a bed of straw and eating bran bread, he had a 
good barrel of Dorchester ale in his lodgings, his usual glass of 
maraschino, and his bottle of claret after dinner ; and though 
living on charity, could order new snuff-boxes to add to his 
collection, and new knick-knacks to adorn his room. There 
can be no pity for such a man, and we have no pity for him, 
whatever the rest of the world may feel. 

Nothing can be more contemptible than the gradual down- 
fall of the broken beau. Yet, if it were doubted that his soul 
ever rose above the collar of a coat or the brim of a hat, his 
letters to Mr. Raikes in the time of his poverty would settle 
the question. ' I heard of you the other day in a waistcoat 
that does you considerable credit, spick-and-span from Paris, 
a broad stripe, salmon-colour, and cramoisL Don't let them 
laugh you into a relapse — into the Gothic — as that of your 
former English simplicity.' He speaks of the army of occupation 
as * rascals in red coats waiting for embarkation.' ^English 
education,' he says in another letter, ' may be all very well to 

27 — 2 



420 George the Greater and George the Less. 

instruct the hemming of handkerchiefs, and the ungainly romps 
of a country-dance, but nothing else ; and it would be a poor 
consolation to your declining years to see your daughters come 
into the room upon their elbows, and to find their accomplish- 
ments limited to broad native phraseology in conversation, or 
thumping the " Woodpecker " upon a discordant spinet.' And 
he proceeds to recommend a ^good French formation of 
manners,' and so forth. 

Nor did he display any of that dignity and self-respect which 
are generally supposed to mark the ^gentleman.' When his 
late friend and foe, by this time a king, passed through Calais, 
the Beau, broken in every sense, had not pride enough to keep 
out of his way. Many stories are told of the manner in which 
he pressed himself into George IV. 's notice, but the various 
legends mostly turn upon a certain snuff-box. According to one 
quite as reliable as any other, the Prince and the Beau had 
in their days of amity intended to exchange snuff-boxes, and 
George the Greater had given George the Less an order on his 
jeweller for a tahatiere with his portrait on the top. On their 
quarrel this order was, with very bad taste, rescinded, although 
Brummell's snuff-box had already passed into the Prince's hands 
and had not been returned. It is said that the Beau employed 
a friend to remind the king of this agreement, and ask for his 
box ; to whom the latter said that the story was all nonsense, 
and that he supposed ^ the poor devil,' meaning his late intimate 
friend, wanted ;^ioo and should have it. However, it is doubt- 
ful if the money ever reached the ^poor devil' The story 
does not tell over well, for whatever were the failings and faults 
of George IV., he seems to have had a certain amount of good 
nature, if not absolutely of good heart, and possessed, at least, 
sufficient sense of what became a prince, to prevent his doing 
so shabby an act, though, he may have defrauded a hundred 
tradesmen. In these days there were such things as ^ debts of 
honour,' and they were punctiliously attended to. There are, 
as we have said, various versions of this story, but all tend to 
shovv^ that Brummell courted the notice of his late master and 
patron on his way through the place of his exile; and it is not 
remaikable in a man v/ho borrowed so freely from ail his ac- 



A n Extraordinary Step. 42 1 

quaintances, and who was, in fact, in such a state of dependence 
on their Hberahty. 

Brummell made one grand mistake in his career as a Beau : 
he outHved himself. For some twenty-four years he survived 
his flight from England, to which country he never returned. 
For a time he was an assiduous writer of begging-letters and 
the plague of his friends. At length he obtained the appoint- 
ment of consul at the good old Norman town of Caen. This 
was almost a sinecure, an^ the Beau took care to keep it so. 
But no one can account for the extraordinary step he took soon 
after entering on his consular duties. He wrote to Lord 
Palmerston, stating that there were no duties attached to the 
post, and recommending its abolition. This act of suicide is 
partly explained by a supposed desire to be appointed to some 
more lively and more lucrative consulate ; but in this the Beau 
was mistaken. Tlie consulate at Caen was vacated in accordance 
with his suggestion, and Brummell was left penniless, in debt, 
and to shift for himself. With the aid of an English tradesman, 
half grocer, half banker, he managed to get through a period of 
his poverty, but could not long subsist in this way, and the 
punishment of his vanity and extravagance came at last in his 
old age. A term of existence in prison did not cure him, and 
when he was liberated he again resumed his primrose gloves, his 
Eau de Cologne, and his patent vernis for his boots, though at 
that time literally supported by his friends with an allowance 
of ^120 per annum. In the old days of Caen life this would 
have been equal to ;^3oo a year in England, and certainly 
quite enough for any bachelor ; but the Beau was really a fool. 
For whom, for what should he dress and polish his boots at such 
a quiet place as Caen ? Yet he continued to do so, and to run 
into debt for the polish. When he confessed to having, ^ so 
help him Heaven,' not four francs in the world, he was order- 
ing this vernis de Guiton, at five francs a bottle, from Paris, and 
calling the provider of it a * scoundrel,' because he ventured to 
ask for his money. What foppery, what folly was all this ! 
How truly worthy of the man who built his fame on the repu- 
tation of a coat ! Terrible indeed was the hardship that followed 
his extravagance ; he was actually compelled to exchange his 



422 Down the Hill of Life. 

white for a black cravat. Poor martyr ! after such a trial it is 
impossible to be hard upon him. So, too, the man who sent 
repeated begging-letters to the English grocer, Armstrong, threw 
out of window a new dressing-gown because it was not of the 
pattern he wished to have. 

Retribution for all this folly came in time. His mind went 
even before his health. Though only some sixty years of age, 
almost the bloom of some men's life, he lost his memory and 
his powers of attention. His old ill-manners became positively 
bad manners. When feasted and feted, he could find nothing 
better to say than ^ What a half-starved turkey.' At last the 
Beau was reduced to the level of that slovenliness which he 
had considered as the next step to perdition. Reduced to one 
pair of trousers, he had to remain in bed till they were mended. 
He grew indifferent to his personal appearance, the surest sign 
of decay. Drivelling, wretched, in debt, an object of contempt 
to all honest men, he dragged on a miserable existence. Still 
with his boots in holes, and all the honour of beau-dom gone 
for ever, he clung to the last to his Eau de Cologne, and some 
few other luxuries, and went down, a fool and a fop, to the 
grave. To indulge his silly tastes he had to part with one piece 
of property after another ; and at length he was left with little 
else than the locks of hair of which he had once boasted. 

I remember a story of a labourer and his dying wife. The 
poor woman was breathing her last wishes. ^And, I say, 
William, you'll see the old sow don't kill her young uns ?' — ' Ay, 
ay, wife, set thee good.' ' And, I say, WilHam, you'll see Lizzy 
goes to schule reg'lar?' — 'Ay, ay, wife, set thee good.' 'And, 
I say, William, you'll see Tommy's breeches is mended against 
he goes to schule again ? — ' Ay, ay, wife, set thee good.' — 
' And, I say, William, you'll see I'm laid proper in the yard ?' 
William grew impatient. ' Now never thee mind them things, 
wife, I'll see to 'em all, you just go on with yoUr dying.' No 
doubt Brummell's friends heartily wished that he would go on 
with his dying, for he had already lived too long; but he would 
live on. He is described in his last days as a miserable, 
slovenly, half-witted old creature, creeping about to the houses 
of a few friends he retained or who were kind enough to notice 



A Miserable Old Age, 425 

him still, jeered at by the, gamins, and remarkable now, not for 
the cleanliness, but the filthiness and raggedness of his attire. 

Poor old fool ! one cannot but pity him, when wretched, 
friendless, and miserable as he was, we find him, still graceful, 
in a poor cafe near the Place Royale, taking his cup of coffee, 
and when asked for the amount of his bill, answering very 
vaguely, ' Oui, Madame, a la pleine lune, a la pleine lune.' 

The drivellings of old age are no fit subject for ridicule, yet 
in the case of a man wh^-had sneered so freely at his fellow- 
creatures, they may afford a useful lesson. One of his fancies 
was to give imaginary parties, when his tallow dips were all set 
alight and his servant announced with proper decorum, ' The 
Duchess of Devonshire,' ' Lord Alvanley, ' Mr. Sheridan,' or 
whom not. The poor old idiot received the imaginary visitors 
with the old bow, and talked to them in the old strain, till his 
servant announced their imaginary carriages, and he was put 
drivelling to bed. At last the idiocy became mania. He burnt 
his books, his relics, his tokens. He ate enormously, and the 
man who had looked upon beer as the ne plus ultra of vulga- 
rity, was glad to imagine it champagne. Let us not follow the 
poor maniac through his wanderings. Ratlier let us throw a 
veil over all his drivelling wretchedness, and find him at his 
last gasp, when coat and collar, hat and brim, were all forgotten, 
when the man who had worn three shirts a day was content to 
change his linen once a month. What a lesson, what a warn- 
ing ! If Brummell had come to this pass in England, it is hard 
to say how and where he would have died. He was now utterly 
penniless, and had no prospect of receiving any remittances. 
It was determined to remove him to the Hospice du Bon Sau- 
veur, a Maison de Charite, where he would be well cared for at 
no expense. The mania of the poor creature took, as ever, the 
turn of external preparation. When the landlord of his inn 
entered to try and induce him to go, he found him with his wig 
on his knee, his shaving apparatus by his side, and the quon- 
dam beau deeply interested in lathering the peruke as a 
preliminary to shearing it. He resisted every proposal to 
move, and was carried down stairs, kicking and shrieking. 
Once lodged in the Hospice, he was treated by the soeurs 



424 /^ the Hospice du Bon Sativeur. 

de charite with the^ greatest kindness and consideration. An 
attempt was made to recall him to a sense of his future peril, 
that he might at least die in a more religious mood than he had 
lived ; but in vain. It is not for us, erring and sinful as we are, 
to judge any fellow-creature ; but perhaps poor Brummell was 
the last man to whom religion had a meaning. His heart was 
good j his sins were more those of vanity than those of hate ; it 
may be that they are regarded mercifully where the fund of mercy 
is unbounded. God grant that they may be so ; or who of us 
would escape ? None but fiends will triumph over the death of 
any man in sin. Men are not fiends ; they must and will always 
feel for their fellow-men, let them die as they will. No doubt 
Brummell was a fool — a fool of the first water, but that he was 
equally a knave was not so certain. Let it never be certain to 
blind man, who cannot read the heart, that any man is a 
knave. He died on the 30th of March, 1840, and so the last 
of the Beaux passed away. People have claimed, indeed for 
D'Orsay, the honour of BrummelFs descending mantle, but 
D'Orsay was not strictly a beau, for he had other and higher 
tastes than mere dress. It has never been advanced that Brum- 
melFs heart was bad, in spite of his many faults. Vanity did 
all. Vanitas vanitatem. O young men of this age, be warned 
by a Beau, and flee his doubtful reputation ! Peace then to 
the coat-thinker. Peace to all — to the worst. Let us look 
within and not judge. It is enough that we are not tried in the 
same balance. 




^^ 


]S^^m 


B 


M 



THEODO^ EDWARD HOOK. 

rhe Greatest of Modern Wits. — ^Whiit Coleridge said of Hook. — Hook's Family .- 
— Redeeming Points. — ^Versatility. — ^Varieties of Hoaxing. — The Black- 
wafered Horse. — ^The Berners Street Hoax. — Success of the Scheme. — The 
Strop of Hunger. — Kitchen Examinations. — ^The Wrong House. — ^Anghng 
for an Invitation. — The Hackney-coach Device. — The Plots of Hook and 
Mathews. — Hook's Talents as an Improvisators — The Gift becomes his 
Bane. — Hook's Novels. — College Fun. — Baiting a Proctor. — The Punning 
Faculty. — Official Life Opens. — Troublesome Pleasantry. — Charge of Em- 
bezzlement. — Misfortune. — Doubly Disgraced. — No Effort to remove the 
Stain. — Attacks on the Queen. — An Incongruous Mixture. — Specimen ot 
the Ramsbottom Letters. — Hook's Scurrility. — Fortune and Popularity. — 
The End. 




F it be difficult to say what wit is, it is well nigh as hard 
to pronounce what is not wit. In a sad world, mirth 
hath its full honour, let it come in rags or in purple 
raiment. The age that patronises a ' Punch ' every Saturday? 
and a pantomime every Christmas, has no right to complain, if 
it finds itself barren of vnts, while a rival age has brought forth 
her dozens. Mirth is, no doubt, very good. We would see 
more, not less, of it in this unmirthful land. We would fain 
imagine the shrunken-cheeked factory-girl singing to herself a 
happy burthen, as she shifts the loom, — the burthen of her life, 
and fain believe that the voice was innocent as the sky-lark's. 
But if it be not so — and we know it is not so — shall we quarrel 
with any one who tries to give the poor care-woni, money-sing- 
ing public a little laughter for a few pence ? No, truly, but it 
does not follow that the man who raises a titter is, of necessity, 
a wit. The next age, perchance, will write a book of ' Wits 
and Beaux,' in which Mr. Douglas Jerrold, Mr. Mark Lemon, 
and so on, will represent the «/// of this passing day ; and that 
future age will not ask so nicely what wit is, and not look for 
that last solved of riddles, its definition. 



426 The Greatest of Modern Wits, 

Hook has been, by common consent, placed at the head of 
modern wits. When kings were kings, they buUied, beat, and 
and brow-beat their jesters. Now and then they treated them to 
a few years in the Tower for a Uttle extra impudence. Now that 
the people are sovereign, the jester fares better — nay, too well. 
His books or his bon-mots are read with zest and grins ; he is 
invited to his Grace's and implored to my Lord's ; he is waited 
for, watched, pampered like a small Grand Lama, and, in one 
sentence, the greater the fool, the more fools he makes. 

If Theodore Hook had lived in the stirring days of King 
Henry VIIL, he would have sent Messrs. Patch and Co. sharply 
to the right-about, and been presented with the caps and bells 
after his first comic song. No doubt he was a jester, a fool in 
many senses, though he did not, like Solomon's fool, ^ say in his 
heart ^ very much. He jested away even the practicals of life, 
jested himself into disgrace, into prison, into contempt, into the 
basest employment — that of a libeller tacked on to a party. 
He was a mimic, too, to whom none could send a challenge ; 
an improvisatore, who beat Italians, Tyroleans, and Styrians 
hollow, sir, hollow. And lastly — oh ! shame of the shuffle- 
tongued — he was, too, a punster. Yes, one who gloried in puns, 
a maker of pun upon pun, a man whose whole wit ran into a 
pun as readily as water rushes into a hollow, who could not keep 
out of a pun, let him loathe it or not, and who made some of 
the best and some of the worst on record, but still — ^puns. 

If he was a wit withal, it was malgre soi, for fun, not for wit, 
was his * aspiration.' Yet the world calls him a wit, and he 
has a claim to his niche. There were, it is true, many a man 
in his own set who had more real wit. There were James 
Smith, Thomas Ingoldsby, Tom Hill, and others. Out of his 
set, but of his time, there was Sydney Smith, ten times more a 
wit : but Theodore could amuse, Theodore could astonish, 
Theodore could be at home anywhere ; he had all the impu- 
dence, all the readiness, all the indifference of a jester, and a 
jester he was. 

Let any one look at his portrait, and he will doubt if this 
be the king's jester, painted by Holbein, or Mr. Theodore 
Hook, painted by Eddis. The short, thick nose, the long upper 



V/hat Coleridge said of Hook, 427 

Up, the sensual, whimsical mouth, the twinkling eyes, all be- 
long to the regular maker of fun. Hook was a certificated 
jester, with a lenient society to hear and applaud him, instead 
of an irritable tyrant to keep him in order : and he filled his 
post well. Whether he was more than a jester may well be 
doubted ; yet Coleridge, when he heard him, said : ^ I have 
before in my time met with men of admirable promptitude of 
intellectual power and play of wit, which, as Stillingfleet says : 

"The rays df^it gild wheresoe'er they strike," 

but I never could have conceived such readiness of mind and 
resources of genius to be poured out on the mere subject and 
impulse of the moment' The poet was wrong in one respect. 
Genius can in no sense be applied to Hook, though readiness 
was his chief charm. 

The famous Theodore was born in the same year as Byron, 
1788, the one on the 22nd of January, the other on the 22nd 
of September ; so the poet was only nine months his senior. 
Hook, like many other wits, was a second son. Ladies of sixty 
or seventy well remember the name of Hook as that which 
accompanied their earliest miseries. It w^as in learning Hook's 
exercises, or primers, or whatever they were called, that they 
first had their fingers slapped over the piano-forte. The father 
of Theodore, no doubt, was the unwitting cause of much un- 
happiness to many a young lady in her teens. Hook pere was 
an organist at Norwich. He came up to town, and was engaged 
at Marylebone Gardens and at Vauxhall j so that Theodore had 
no excuse for being of decidedly plebeian origin, and, Tory as 
he was, he was not fool enough to aspire to patricianism. 

Theodore's family was, in real fact, Theodore himself He 
made the name what it is, and raised himself to the position 
he at one time held. Yet he had a brother whose claims to 
celebrity are not altogether ancillary. James Hook was fifteen 
years older than Theodore. After leaving Westminster School 
he was sent to immortal Skimmery (St. Mary's Hall), Oxford, 
which has fostered so many great men — and spoiled them. He 
was advanced in the church from one preferment to another, 
and ultimately became Dean of Worcester. The character of 



428 Hook's Family. 

the reverend gentleman is pretty well known, but it is unne* 
cessary here to go into it farther. He is only mentioned as 
Theodore's brother in this sketch.'''' He was a dabbler in litera- 
ture, like his brother, but scarcely to the same extent a dabbler 
in wit. 

The younger son of ^ Hook's Exercises' developed early 
enough a taste for ingenious lying — so much admired in his 
predecessor — Sheridan, He ^fancied himself a genius, and 
therefore, from school-age, not amenable to the common laws 
of ordinary men. Frequenters of the now fashionable prize- 
ring — ^thanks to two brutes who have brought that degraded 
pastime into prominent notice — will hear a great deal about a 
man ^ fancying himself.' It is common slang and heeds little 
explanation. Hook ^fancied himself ' from an early period, and 
continued to ^ fancy himself,' in spite of repeated disgraces, till 
a very mature age. At Harrow, he was the contemporary, but 
scarcely the friend, of Lord Byron. No two characters could 
have been more unlike. Every one knows, more or less, what 
B)n:on's was ; it need only be said that Hook's was the reverse 
of it in every respect. .Byron felt where Hook laughed. Byron 
was morbid where Hook was gay. Byron abjured with disgust 
the social vices to which he was introduced ; Hook fell in v/ith 
them. Byron indulged in vice in a romantic way ; Hook in 
the coarsest. There is some excuse for Byron, much as he has 
been blamed. There is little or no excuse for Hook, much as 
his faults have been palliated. The fact is that goodness of 
heart will soften, in men's minds, any or all misdemeanours. 
Hook, in spite of many vulgar witticisms and cruel jokes, seems 
to have had a really good heart. 

I have it on the authority of one of Hook's most intimate 
friends, that he was capable of any act of kindness, and by way 
of instance of his goodness of heart, I am told by the same 
person that he on one occasion quitted all his town amuse- 
ments to solace the spirit of a friend in the country who was in 
serious trouble. I, of course, refrain from giving names : but 
the same person informs me that much of his time was devoted 

* Dr. James Hook, Dean of Worcester, was father to Dr. Walter Farquhar 
Hook, now the excellent Dean of Chichester, late Vicar of Leeds. 



Versatility, 429 

in a like manner, to relieving, as far as possible, the anxiety 
of his friends, often, indeed, arising from his own carelessness. 
It is due to Hook to make this impartial statement before en- 
tering on a sketch of his ' Sayings and Doings,' which must 
necessarily leave the impression that he was a heartless man. 

Old Hook, the father, soon perceived the value of his son's 
talents ; and, determined to turn them to account, encouraged 
his natural inclination to song-writing. At the age of sixteen 
Theodore wrote a kindaf comic opera, to which his father sup- 
plied the music. This was called ' The Soldiers Return.' It 
was followed by others, and young Hook, not yet out of his 
teens, managed to keep a Drury Lane audience alive, as well as 
himself and family. It must be remembered, however, that 
Liston and Matthews could make almost any piece amusing. 
The young author was introduced behind the scenes through 
his father's connection with the theatre, and often played the 
fool under the stage while others were playing it for him above 
it, practical jokes being a passion with him which he developed 
thus early. These tricks were not always very good-natured, 
which may be said of many of his jokes out of the theatre. 

He soon showed evidence of another talent, that of acting 
as well as writing pieces. Assurance was one of the main fea- 
tures of his character, and to it he owed his success in society; 
but it is a remarkable fact, that on his first appearance before 
an audience he entirely lost all his nerve, turned pale, and 
could scarcely utter a syllable. He rapidly recovered, however, 
and from this time became a favourite performer in private 
theatricals, in which he was supported by Mathews and Mrs. 
Mathews, and some amateurs who were almost equal to any 
professional actors. His attempts were, of course, chiefly in 
broad farce and roaring burlesque, in which his comic face, with 
its look of mock gravity, and the twinkle of the eyes, itself ex- 
cited roars of laughter. Whether he would have succeeded as 
well in sober comedy or upon public boards may well be 
doubted. Probably he would not have given to the profession 
that careful attention and entire devotion that are necessary to 
bring forward properly the highest natural talents. It is said 
that for a long time he was anxious to take to the stage as a 



430 Varieties of Hoaxing. 

profession, but, perhaps — as the event seems to show — ^unfortu- 
nately for him, he was dissuaded from Avhat his friends must 
have thought a very rash step, and in after years he took a vio- 
lent disUke to the profession. Certainly the stage could not 
have offered more temptations than did the society in which he 
afterwards mixed ; and perhaps under any circumstances Hook, 
whose moral education had been neglected, and whose princi- 
ples were never very good, would have lived a life more or less 
vicious, though he might not have died as he did. 

Hook, however, was not long in coming very prominently 
before the public in another capacity. Of all stories told 
about him, none are more common or more popular than those 
which relate to his practical jokes and hoaxes. Thank heaven, 
the world no longer sees amusement in the misery of others, 
and the fashion of such clever performance is gone out. It is 
fair, however, to premise, that while the cleverest of Hook's 
hoaxes were of a victimizing character, a large number were 
just the reverse, and his admirers affirm, not without some reason, 
that when he had got a dinner out of a person whom he did 
not know, by an ingenious lie, admirably supported, he fully 
paid for it in the amusement he afforded his host and the ring- 
ing metal of his wit. As we have all been boys — except those 
that were girls — and not all of us very good boys, we can ap- 
preciate that passion for robbery which began with orchards - 
and passed on to knockers. It is difficult to sober middle-age - 
to imagine what entertainment there can be in that breach of the 
eighth commandment, which is generally regarded as innocent 
As Sheridan swindled in fun, so Hook, as a young man, robbed 
in fun, as hundreds of medical students and others have done 
before and since. Hook, however, was a proficient in the art, 
and would have made a successful ^ cracksman ' had he been 
born in the Seven Dials. He collected a complete museum of 
knockers, bell-pulls, wooden Highlanders, barbers' poles, and 
shop signs of all sorts. On one occasion he devoted a whole 
fortnight to the abstraction of a golden eagle over a shop 
window, by means of a lasso. A fellow dilettante in the art 
had confidentially informed him of its whereabouts, adding 
that he himself despaired of ever obtaining it. At length Hook 



The Black- Wafcred Horse. 43 1 

invited his friend to dinner, and on the removal of the cover of 
what was supposed to be the joint, the work of art appeared 
served up and appropriately garnished. Theodore was radiant 
with triumph; but the friend, probably thinking that there 
ought to be honour among thieves, was highly indignant at being 
thus surpassed. 

Another achievement of this kind was the robbery of a life- 
sized Highlander, who graced the door of some unsuspecting 
tobacconist. There wa^-little difficulty in the mere displace- 
ment of the figure; the troublesome part of the business was 
to get the bare-legged Celt home to the museum, where pro- 
bably many a Lilliputian of his race was already awaiting him. 
A cloak, a hat, and Hook's ready wit effected the transfer. The 
first was thrown over him, the second set upon his bonneted 
head, and a passing hackney coach hailed by his captor, who 
before the unsuspecting driver could descend, had opened the 
door, pushed in the prize, and whispered to Jehu, ^ My friend 
— very respectable man — but rather tipsy.' How he managed 
to get him out again at the end of the journey we are not told. 

Hook was soon a successful and valuable writer of light pieces 
for the stage. But farces do not live, and few of Hook's are 
now favourites with a public which is always athirst for some- 
thing new. The incidents of most of the pieces — many of 
them borrowed from the French — excited laughter by their 
very improbability; but the wit which enlivened them was 
not of a high order, and Hook, though so much more recent 
than Sheridan, has disappeared before him. 

But his hoaxes Avere far more famous than his collection of 
curiosities, and quite as much to the purpose ; and the impru- 
dence he displayed in them was only equalled by the quaiilt- 
ness of the humour which suggested them. Who else would 
have ever thought, for instance, of covering a white horse with 
black wafers, and driving it in a gig along a Welsh high-road, 
merely for the satisfaction of being stared at ? It was almost 
worthy of Bamum. Or who, with less assurance, could have 
played so admirably on the credulity of a lady and daughters 
fresh from the country as he did, at the trial of Lord Melville? 
The lady, who stood next to him, was, naturally, anxious to 



432 The Berners Street Hoax. 

understand the proceedings, and betrayed her ignorance at 
once by a remark which she made to her daughter about the 
procession of the Lords into the House. When the bishops 
entered in full episcopal costume, she applied to Hook to know 
who were ' those gentlemen ?' ' Gentlemen/ quoth Hook, with 
charming simplicity ; ^ ladies, I think you mean ; at any rate, 
those are the dowager peeresses in their own right.' Question 
followed question as the procession came on, and Theodore 
indulged his fancy more and more. At length the Speaker, in 
full robes, became the subject of inquiry. ^ And pray, sir, who 
is that fine looking person ?' — ' That, ma'am, is Cardinal Wolsey,' 
was the calm and audacious reply. This was too much even 
for Sussex ; and the lady drew herself up in majestic indigna- 
tion. ^ We know better than that, sir,' she replied : ^ Cardinal 
Wolsey has been dead many a good year.' Theodore was un- 
moved. ^ No such thing, my dear madam,' he answered, without 
the slightest sign of perturbation : ' I know it has been generally 
reported so in the country, but without the slightest foundation ; 
the newspapers, you know, will say anything.' 

But the hoax of hoaxes, the one which filled the papers of 
the time for several days, and which, eventually, made its author 
the very prince of hoaxsters, if such a term can be admitted, 
was that of Berners Street. Never, perhaps, was so much 
trouble expended, or so much attention devoted, to so frivolous 
an object. In Berners Street there lived an elderly lady, who, 
for no reason that can be ascertained, had excited the animosity 
of the young Theodore Hook, who was then just of age. Six 
weeks were spent in preparation, and three persons engaged in 
the affair. Letters were sent off in every direction, and Theo- 
dore Hook's autograph, if it could have any value, must have 
been somewhat low in the market at that period, from the 
number of applications which he wrote. On the day in question 
he and his accomplices seated themselves at a window in 
Berners Street, opposite to that unfortunate Mrs. Tottenham, of 
No 54, and there enjoyed the fan. Advertisements, announce- 
ments, letters, circulars, and what not, had been most freely 
issued, and were as freely responded to. A score of sweeps, 
all 'invited to attend professionally,' opened the ball at a 



Success of the Scheme, 43 3 

very early hour, and claimed admittance, in virtue of the 
notice they had received. The maid-servant had only 
just time to assure them that all the chimneys were clean, 
and their services were not required, when some dozen 
of coal-carts drew up as near as possible to the ill-fated 
house. New protestations, new indignation. The grimy and 
irate coalheavers were still being discoursed with, when 
a bevy of neat and polite individuals arrived from different 
quarters, bearing each :>nder his arm a splendid ten-guinea 
wedding-cake. The maid grew distracted; her mistress was 
single, and had no intention of doubling herself; there must 
be some mistake ; the confectioners were dismissed, in a very 
different humour to that with which they had come. But they 
were scarcely gone when crowds began to storm the house, all 
' on business.' Rival doctors met in astonishment and disgust, 
prepared for an accouchement; undertakers stared one another 
mutely in the face, as they deposited at the door coffins made 
to order — elm or oak — so many feet and so many inches ; the 
clergymen of all the neighbouring parishes, high church or low 
church, were ready to minister to the spiritual wants of the 
unfortunate moribund, but retired in disgust when they found 
that some forty fishmongers had been engaged to purvey ' cod's 
head and lobsters ' for a person professing to be on the brink 
of the grave. 

The street now became the scene of fearful distraction. 
Furious tradesmen of every kind were ringing the house-bell, 
and rapping the knocker for admittance — such, at least, as 
could press through the crowd as far as the house. Bootmakers 
arrived with Hessians and WeUingtons — ^ as per order ' — or the 
most delicate of dancing-shoes for the sober old lady ; haber- 
dashers had brought the last new thing in evening dress, ^ quite 
the fashion,' and *very chaste;' hat-makers from Lincoln and 
Bennett down to the Hebrew vendor in Marylebone Lane, 
anived with their crown-pieces ; butchers' boys, on stout little 
nags, could not get near enough to deliver the legs of mutton which 
had been ordered ; the lumbering coal-carts ' still stopped the 
way.' A crowd — the easiest curiosity in the world to collect — 
soon gathered round the motley mob of butchers, bakers, 

28 



434 ^^^ Strop of Hunger, 

candlestick-makers, and makers and sellers of ever}'-thing else 
that mortal can want ; the mob thronged the pavement, the carts 
filled the road, and soon the carriages of the noble of the land 
dashed up in all the panoply of state, and a demand was made 
to clear the way for the Duke of Gloucester, for the Governor 
of the Bank, the Chairman of the East India Company, and last, 
but, oh ! not least, the grandee whose successor the originator 
of the plot afterwards so admirably satirized — the great Lord 
Mayor himself The consternation, disgust, and terror of the 
elderly female, the delight and chuckling of Theodore and his 
accomplices, seated at a window on the opposite side of the roady 
^ can be more easily imagined than described ;' but what were 
the feelings of tradesmen, professional men, gentlemen, noble- 
men, and grand officials, who had been summoned from distant 
spots by artful lures to No. 54, and there battled with a crowd 
in vain only to find that there were hoaxed ; people who had 
thus lost both time and money, can be neither described nor 
imagined. It was not the idea of the hoax — simple enough in 
itself — which was entitled to the admiration accorded to in- 
genuity, but its extent and success, and the clever means taken 
by the conspirators to insure the attendance of every one wha 
ought not to have been there. It was only late at night that 
the police succeeded in clearing the street, and the dupes, 
retired, murmuring and vowing vengeance. Hook, however^ 
gloried in the exploit, which he thought ^perfect' 

But the hoaxing dearest to Theodore — for there was some- 
thing to be gained by it — ^was that by which he managed to 
obtain a dinner when either too hard-up to pay for one, or in 
the humour for a little amusement. No one who has not lived 
as a bachelor in London and been reduced — in respect of 
coin — to the sum of twopence-halfpenny, can tell how excel- 
lent a strop is hunger to sharpen wit upon. We all know that 

' Mortals with stomachs can't live without dinner ;' 

and in Hook's day the substitute of ' heavy teas' was not in- 
vented. Necessity is very soon brought to bed, when a man 
puts his fingers into his pockets, finds them untenanted, and 
remembers that the only friend who would consent to lend him 



Kitchen Examinations. 435 

five shillings is gone out of town ; and the infant, Invention, 
presently smiles into the nurse's face. But it was no uncommon 
thing in those days for gentlemen to invite themselves where . 
they listed, and stay as long as they liked. It was only neces- 
sary for them to make themselves really agreeable, and deceive 
their host in some way or other. Hook's friend, little Tom 
Hill, of whom it was said that he knew everybody's affairs far 
better than they did themselves, was famous for examining 
kitchens about the hour of dinner, and quietly selecting his 
host according to the odour of the viands. It is of him that 
the old ' Joe Miller' is told of the ' haunch of venison.' Invited 
to dinner at one house, he happens to glance down into the 
kitchen of the next, and seeing a tempting haunch of venison 
on the spit, throws over the inviter, and ingratiates himself 
with his neighbour, who ends by asking him to stay to dinner. 
The fare, however, consisted of nothing more luxurious than 
an Irish stew, and the disappointed guest was informed that he 
had been ' too cunning by half,' inasmuch as the venison be- 
longed to his original inviter, and had been cooked in the house 
he was in by kind permission, because the chimney of the owner's 
kitchen smoked. 

The same principle often actuated Theodore ; and, indeed, 
there are few stories which can be told of this characteristic of 
the great frolicker, which have not been told a century of times. 

For instance : two young men are strolling, towards 5 p.m., 
in the then fashionable neighbourhood of Soho ; the one is 
Terry, the actor — the other. Hook, the actor, for surely he de- 
serves the title. They pass a house, and sniff the viands cook- 
ing underground. Hook quietly announces his intention of 
dining there. He enters, is admitted and announced by the 
servant, mingles with the company, and is quite at home before 
he is perceived by the host. At last the denouemefit came ; the 
dinner-giver approached the stranger, and with great politeness 
asked his name. ^ Smith' was, of course, the reply, and revert- 
ing to mistakes made by servants in announcing, &c., 'Smith' 
hurried off into an amusing story, to put his host in good hu- 
mour. The conversation that followed is taken from ' In- 
goldsby' : — 

28—2 



43^ The Wrong House, 

' But, really, my dear sir,' the host put in, ' I think the mis- 
take on the present occasion does not originate in the source 
• you allude to ; I certainly did not anticipate the honour of Mr. 
Smith's company to-day.' 

' No, I dare say not. You said four in your note, I know, 
and it is now, I see, a quarter past five ; but the fact is, I have 
been detained in the City, as I was going to explain — ' 

Pray,' said the host, ' whom do you suppose you are ad- 
dressing ?' 

^ Whom ? why Mr. Thompson, of course, old friend of my 
father. I have not the pleasure, indeed, of being personally 
known to you, but having received your kind invitation yester- 
day,' &c. &c. 

' No, sir, my name is not Thompson, but Jones,' in highly 
indignant accents. 

' Jones !' was the well-acted answer : ' why, surely, I cannot 
have — ^yes I must — good heaven ! I see it all. My dear sir, 
what an unfortunate blunder ; wrong house — ^w^hat must you 
think of such an intrusion ? I am really at a loss for words in 
which to apologize ; you will permit me to retire at present, and 
to-morrow — ' 

^Pray, don't think of retiring,' rejoined the host, taken with 
the appearance and manner of the young man. ' Your friend's 
table must have been cleared long ago, if, as you say, four was 
the hour named, and I am too happy to be able to offer you a 
seat at mine.' 

It may be easily conceived that the invitation had not to be 
very often repeated, and Hook kept the risible muscles of the 
company upon the constant stretch, and paid for the entertain- 
ment in the only coin with which he was well supplied. 

There was more wit, however, in his visit to a retired watch- 
maker, who had got from government a premium of ;^i 0,000 
for the best chronometer. Hook was very partial to journeys 
in search of adventure ; a gig, a lively companion, and sixpence 
for the first turnpike being generally all that was requisite ; in- 
genuity supplied the rest. It was on one of these excursions, 
that Hook and his friend found them-selves in the neighbourhood 
of Uxbridge, with a horse and a gig, and not a sixpence to be 



The Hachiey-Coach Device. 437 

found in any pocket. Now a horse and gig are property, but 
of what use is a valuable of which you cannot dispose or de- 
posit at a pawnbroker's, while you are prevented proceeding on 
your way by that neat white gate with the neat white box of a 
house at its side ? The only alternative left to the young men 
was to drive home again, dinnerless, a distance of twenty miles, 
with a jaded horse, or to find gratuitous accommodation for 
man and beast. In such a case Sheridan would simply have 
driven to the first inn, ^d by persuasion or stratagem contrived 
to elude payment, after having drunk the best wine and eaten 
the best dinner the house could afford. Hook was really more 
refined, as well as bolder in his pillaging. 

The villa of the retired tradesman was perceived, and the gig 
soon drew up before the door. The strangers were ushered in 
to the watchmaker, and Hook, with great politeness and a 
serious respectful look, addressed him.. He said that he felt he 
was taking a great liberty — so he was — but that he could not 
pass the door of a man who had done the country so much ser- 
vice by the invention of what must prove the most useful and 
valuable instrument, without expressing to him the gratitude 
which he, as a British subject devoted to his country's good, 
could not but feel towards the inventor, &c. &c. The flattery 
was so delicately and so seriously insinuated, that the worthy 
citizen could only receive it as an honest expression of sincere 
admiration. The Rubicon was passed ; a little lively conversa- 
tion, artfully made attractive by Hook, followed, and the watch- 
maker was more and more gratified. He felt, too, what an ho- 
nour it would be to entertain two real gentlemen, and remarking 
that they were far from town, brought out at last the longed- 
for invitation, which was, of course, declined as out of the 
question. Thereupon the old gentleman became pressing : the 
young strangers were at last prevailed upon to accept it, and 
very full justice they did to the larder and cellar of the success- 
ful chronometer-maker. 

There is nothing very original in the act of hoaxing, and 
Hook's way of getting a hackney-coach without paying for it 
was, perhaps, suggested by Sheridan's, but was more laughable. 
Finding himself in the vehicle, and knowing that there was 



438 The Plots of Hook and Mathews. 

nothing either in his purse or at home to pay the fare, he cast 
about for expedients, and at last remembered the address of an 
eminent surgeon in the neighbourhood. He ordered the coach- 
man to drive to his house and knock violently at the door, 
which was no sooner opened than Hook rushed in, terribly 
agitated, demanded to see the doctor, to whom in a few inco- 
herent and agitated sentences, he gave to understand that his 
wife needed his services, immediately, being on the point of 
becoming a mother. 

* I will start directly,' replied the surgeon ; ^ I will order my 
carriage at once.' 

'' But, my dear sir, there is not a moment to spare. I have 
a coach at the door^ jump into that.' 

The surgeon obeyed. The name and address given were 
those of a middle-aged spinster of the most rigid virtue. We 
can imagine her indignation, and how sharply she rung the 
bell, when the surgeon had delicately explained the object of 
his visit, and how eagerly he took refuge in the coach. Hook 
had, of course, walked quietly away in the meantime, and the 
Galenite had to pay the demand of Jehu. 

The hoaxing stories of Theodore Hook are numberless. 
Hoaxing was the fashion of the day, and a childish fashion too. 
Charles Mathews, whose face possessed the flexibility of an 
acrobat's body, and who could assume any character or disguise 
on the shortest notice, was his great confederate in these 
plots. The banks of the Thames were their great resort. At 
one point there was Mathews talking gibberish in a disguise 
intended to represent the Spanish Ambassador, an(J actually 
deceiving the Woolwich authorities by his clever impersonation. 
At another, there was Hook landing uninvited with his friends 
upon the well-known, sleek-looking lawn of a testy little gentle- 
man, drawing out a note-book and talking so authoritatively about 
the survey for a canal, to be undertaken by Government, that 
the owner of the lawn becomes frightened, and in his anxiety 
attempts to conciliate the mighty self-made official by the offer 
of dinner — of course accepted. 

Then the Arcades ambo show off their jesting tricks at Croydon 
fair, a most suitable place for them. On one occasion Hook 




Ill 'm>RK irOOK'S JONGINKKRIN(t FROLIC. 



^ee \) 4.'is 



# 



Hook's Talents as art Improvisatore. 439 

personates a madman, accusing Mathews, ^his brother/ of keep- 
ing him out of his rights and in his custody. The whole fair 
collects around them, and begins to sympathise with Hook, who 
begs them to aid in his escape from his ^ brother.' A sham 
escape and sham capture take place, and the party adjourn to 
the inn, where Mathews, who had been taken by surprise by 
the new part suddenly played by his confederate, seized upon 
a hearse, which drew up before the inn, on its return from a 
funeral, persuaded the^ company to bind the * madman,' who 
was now becoming furious, and who would have deposited him 
in the gloomy vehicle, if he had not succeeded in snapping his 
fetters, and so escaped. In short, they were two boys, with the 
sole difference, that they had sufficient talent and experience of 
the world to maintain admirably the parts they assumed. 

But a far more famous and more admirable talent in Theo- 
dore than that of deception was that of improvising. The art 
of improvising belongs to Italy and the Tyrol. The wonderful 
gift of ready verse to express satire, and ridicule, seems, as a 
rule, to be confined to the inhabitants of those two lands. 
Others are, indeed, scattered over the world, who possess this 
gift, but very sparsely. Theodore Hook stands almost alone in 
this country as an improviser. Yet to judge of such of his 
verses as have been preserved, taken down from memory or 
what not, the grand effect of them — and no doubt it was grand 
— must have been owing more to his manner and his acting, 
than to any intrinsic value in the verses themselves, which are, 
for the most part, slight, and devoid of actual wit, though 
abounding in puns. Sheridan's testimony to the wonderful 
powers of the man is, perhaps, more valuable than that of any 
one else, for he was a good judge both of verse and of wit. 
One of Hook's earliest displays of his talent was at a dinner 
given by the Drury Lane actors to Sheridan at the Piazza Coffee 
House in 1808. Here, as usual. Hook sat down to the piano, 
and touching off a few chords, gave verse after verse on all 
the events of the entertainment, on each person present, though 
he now saw in^iny of them for the first time, and on anything 
■connected with the matters of interest before them. Sheridan 
was delighted, and declared that he could not have believed 



440 The Gift becomes his Bane. 

such a faculty possible if he had not witnessed its effects : that 
no description ^ could have convinced him of so peculiar aii 
instance of genius/ and so forth. 

One of his most extraordinary efforts in this line is related 
by Mr. Jerdan. A dinner was given by Mansell Reynolds to 
Lockhart, Luttrell, Coleridge, Hook, Tom Hill, and others. 
The grown-up schoolboys, pretty far gone in Falernian, of a 
home-made, and very homely vintage, amused themselves by 
breaking the wine-glasses, till Coleridge was set to demolish the 
last of them with a fork thrown at it from the side of the table. 
Let it not be supposed that any teetotal spirit suggested this 
inconoclasm, far from it — the glasses were too small, and the 
poets, the wits, the punsters, the jesters, preferred to drink their 
port out of tumblers. After dinner Hook gave one of his songs- 
which satirized successively, and successfully, each person pre- 
sent. He was then challenged to improvise on any given subj ect, 
and by way of one as far distant from poetry as could be, cocoa- 
nut oil^di's fixed upon. Theodore accepted the challenge; and 
after a moment's consideration began his lay with a description 
of the Mauritius, which he knew so well, the negroes dancing 
round the cocoa-nut tree, the process of extracting the oil, and 
so forth, all in excellent rhyme and rhythm, if not actual poetry. 
Then came the voyage to England, hits at the Italian ware- 
housemen, and so on, till the oil is brought into the very lamp 
before them in that very room, to show them with the light it 
feeds and make them able to break wine-glasses and get drunk 
from tumblers. This we may be sure Hook himself did, for 
one, and the rest were probably not much behind him. 

In late life this gift of Hook's — improvising I mean, not get- 
ting intoxicated — ^was his highest recommendation in society, 
and at the same time his bane. Like Sheridan, he was ruined 
by his wonderful natural powers. It can well be imagined that 
to improvise in the manner in which Hook did it, and at a 
moment's notice, required some effort of the intellect. This 
effort became greater as circumstances depressed his spirits more 
and more and yet with every care upon his mind, he was ex- 
pected, wherever he went, to amuse the guests with a display 
of his talent. He could not do so without stimulants, and 



Hook's Novels. 44 1 

rather than give up society, fell into habits of drinking, which 
hastened his death. 

AVe have thrown together the foregoing anecdotes of Hook^ 
irrespective of time, in order to show what the man's gifts were, 
and what his title to be considered a wit. We must proceed 
more steadily to a review of his life. Successful as Hook had 
proved as a writer for the stage, he suddenly and without any 
sufficient cause rushed off into another branch of literature, that 
of novel-writing. His . first attempt in this kind of fiction was 
' The Man of SorrowT^published under the no77i de plume of 
Alfred Allendale. This was not, as its name would seem to 
imply, a novel of pathetic cast, but the history of a gentleman 
whose life from beginning • to end is rendered wretched by a 
succession of mishaps of the most ludicrous but improbable 
kind. Indeed Theodore's novels, like his stage-pieces, are gone 
out of date in an age so practical that even in romance it 
will not allow of the slightest departure from reality. Their 
very style was ephemeral, and their interest could not outlast the 
generation to amuse which they were penned. This first novel 
was written when Hook was one-and-twenty. Soon after he 
was sent to Oxford, where he had been entered at St. Mary's 
Hall, more affectionately known by the nickname of ^Skimmery.' 
No selection could have been worse. Skimmery was, at that day, 
and, until quite recently, a den of thieves, where young men 
of fortune and folly submitted to be pillaged in return for being 
allowed perfect licence, as much to eat as they could possibly 
swallow, and far more to drink than was at all good for them. 
It has required all the enterprise of the present excellent Prin- 
cipal to convert it into a place of sober study. It was then 
the most ^ gentlemanly' residence in Oxford ; for a gentleman 
in those days meant a man who did nothing, spent his own or 
his father's guineas with a brilliant indifference to consequences, 
and who applied his mind solely to the art of frolic. It was 
the very place where Hook would be encouraged instead of re- 
strained in his natural propensities, and had he remained there 
he would probably have ruined himself and his father long be- 
fore he had put on the sleeves. 

At the matriculation itself he gave a specimen of his ' fun/ 



442 College Fun, 

When asked, according to the usual form, ^ if he was wilHng to 
sign the Thirty-nine Articles,' he replied, ' Certainly, sir, forty 
if you please.' The gravity of the stern Vice-Chancellor was 
upset, but as no Oxford Don can ever pardon a joke, however 
good. Master Theodore was very nearly being dismissed, had 
not his brother, by this time a Prebendary of Winchester, and 
* an honour to his college, sir,' interceded in his favour. 

The night before, he had given a still better specimen of his 
effrontery. He had picked up a number of old Harrowvians, 
with whom he had repaired to a tavern for song, supper, and 
sociability, and as usual in such cases, in the lap of Alma Mater, 
the babes became sufficiently intoxicated, and not a little up- 
roarious. Drinking in a tavern is forbidden by Oxonian sta- 
tutes, and one of the proctors happening to pass in the street 
outside, was attracted into the house by the sound of somewhat 
unscholastic merriment. The effect can be imagined. All the 
youths were in absolute terror, except Theodore, and looked 
in vain for some way to escape. The wary and faithful ^ bull- 
dogs ' guarded the doorway; the marshal, predecessor of the 
modern omniscient Brown, advanced respectfully behind the 
proctor into the room, and passing a penetrating glance from 
one youth to the other, all of whom — except Theodore again — 
he knew by sight — for that is the pride and pleasure of a mar- 
shal — mentally registered their names in secret hopes of getting 
half-a-crown a-piece to forget them again. 

No mortal is more respectful in his manner of accosting you 
than an Oxford proctor, for he may make a mistake, and a 
mistake may make him very miserable. When, for instance, a 
highly respectable lady was the other day lodged, in spite of 
protestations, in the ' Procuratorial Rooms,' and there locked 
up on suspicion of being somebody very different, the over- 
zealous proctor who had ordered her incarceration was sued for 
damages for ;^3oo, and had to pay them too ! Therefore the 
gentleman in question most graciously and suavely inquired of 
Mr. Theodore Hook— 

* I beg your pardon, sir, but are you a member of this uni- 
versity ?' — the usual form. 

* No, sir, I am not. Are you ?' 



Baiting a Proctor, 443 

The suavity at once changed to grave dignity. The proctor 
lifted up the hem of his garment, which being of broad velvet, 
with the selvage on it, was one of the insignia of his office, and 
sternly said, — ' You see this, sir.' 

'• Ah !' said Hook, cool as ever, and quietly feeling the ma- 
terial, which he examined with apparent interest, ' I see ; Man- 
chester velvet : and may I take the liberty, sir, of inquiring how 
much you have paid per yard for the article ?' 

A roar of laughter from all present burst forth with such ve- 
hemence that it shot' the poor official, red with suppressed 
anger, into the street again, and the merrymakers continued 
their bout till the approach of midnight, when they were obliged 
to return to their respective colleges. 

Had Theodore proceeded in this way for several terms, no 
doubt the outraged authorities would have added his name to 
the list of the great men whom they have expelled from time 
to time most unprophetically. As it was, he soon left the 
groves of Academus, and sought those of Fashion in town. 
His matriculation into this new university was much more 
auspicious ; he was hailed in society as already fit to take a 
degree of bachelor of his particular arts, and ere long his im- 
provising, his fun, his mirth — as yet natural and over-boiling — 
his wicked punning, and his tender wickedness, induced the 
same institution to offer him the grade of ' Master' of those 
arts. In after years he rose to be even ' Doctor,' and many, 
perhaps, were the minds diseased to which his well-knowp 
mirth ministered. 

It was during this period that some of his talents were dis- 
played in the manner we have described, though his great fame 
as an improvisatore was established more completely in later 
days. Yet he had already made himself a name in that spe- 
cies of wit — not a very high one — which found favour with the^ 
society of that period. We allude to imitation, * taking off,' 
and punning. The last contemptible branch of wit-making, now 
happily confined to ' Punch,' is as old as variety of language. 
It is not possible with simple vocabularies, and accordingly is 
seldom met with in purely-derived languages. Yet we have 
Roman and Greek puns ; and English is peculiarly adapted to 



444 The ^ Punning^ Faculty. 

this childish exercise, because, being made up of several lan- 
guages, it necessarily contains many words which are like in 
sound and unlike in meaning. Punning is, in fact, the vice of 
English wit, the temptation of English mirth-makers, and, at 
last, we trust, the scorn of English good sense. But in Theo- 
dore's day it held a high place, and men who had no real wit 
about them could twist and turn words and combinations of 
words with great ingenuity and much readiness, to the delight 
of their listeners. Pun-making was a fashion among the con- 
versationists of that day, and took the place of better wit. Hook 
was a disgraceful punster, and a successful one. He strung 
puns together by the score — nothing more easy — in his impro- 
vised songs and conversation. Take an instance from his quiz 
on the march of intellect : — 

' Hackney-coachmen from Swift shall reply, if you feel 
■ Annoyed at being needlessly shaken ; 
And butchers, of course, be flippant from Steele^ 

And pig-drivers well versed in Bacon. 
From Locke shall the blacksmiths authority brave. 

And gas-men cite Coke at discretion ; 
Undertakers talk Gay as they go to the^;'<2z/^, 
And watermen Rowe by profession.' 

I have known a party of naturally stupid people produce a 
whole century of puns one after another, on any subject that 
presented itself, and I am inclined to think that nothing can, 
at the same time, be more nauseous, or more destructive 
to real wit. Yet Theodore's strength lay in puns, and when 
shorn of them, the Philistines might well laugh at his want of 
strength. Surely his title to wit does not lie in that direction. 

However, he amused, and that gratis ; and an amusing man 
makes his way anywhere if he have only sufficient tact not to 
abuse his privileges. Hook grew great in London society for 
a time, and might have grown greater if a change had not 
come. 

He had supported himself, up to i8 12, almost entirely by his 
pen : and the goose-quill is rarely a staff, though it may some- 
times be a walking-stick. It was clear that he needed — what 
so many of us need and cannot get — a certainty. Happy 
fellow ! he might have begged for an appointment for years in 
vain, as many another does, but it fell into his lap, no one 



Troublesome Pleasantry, 445 

knows how, and at four-and-twenty Mr. Theodore Edward Hook 
was made treasurer to the Island of Mauritius, with a salary of 
;^2,ooo per annum. This was not to be, and was not, despised. 
In spite of climate, mosquitoes, and so forth. Hook took the 
money and sailed. 

We have no intention of entering minutely upon his conduct 
m. this office, which has nothing to do with his character as a 
wit. There are a thousand and one reasons for believing him 
guilty of the charges brought against him, and a thousand and 
one for supposing him guiltless. Here was a young man, gay, 
jovial, given to society entirely, and not at all to arithmetic, put 
into a very trying and awkward position — native clerks who 
would cheat if they could, English governors who would 
find fault if they could, a disturbed treasury, an awkward 
currency, liars for witnesses, and undeniable evidence of defal- 
cation. In a word, an examination was made into the state of 
the treasury of the island, and a large deficit found. It re- 
mained to trace it home to its original author. 

Hook had not acquired the best character in the island. 
Those who know the official dignity of a small British colony 
can well understand how his pleasantries must have shocked 
those worthy big-wigs who, exalted from Pump Court, Temple, 
or Paradise Row, Old Brompton, to places of honour and high 
salaries, rode their high horses with twice the exclusiveness of 
those ^to the manner born.' For instance. Hook was once, by 
a mere chance, obliged to take the chair at an official dinner, 
on which occasion the toasts proposed by the chairman were 
to be accompanied by a salute from guns without. Hook went 
through the list, and seemed to enjoy toast-drinking so much 
that he was quite sorry to have come to the end of it, and con- 
tinued, as if still from the list, to propose successively the health 
of each officer present. The gunners were growing quite weary, 
but having their orders, dared not complain. Hook was de- 
lighted, and went on to the amazement and amusement of all 
who were not tired of the noise, each youthful sub, taken by 
surprise, being quite gratified at the honour done him. At 
last there was no one left to toast ; but the wine had taken effect, 
and Hook, amid roars of laughter inside, and roars of savage 



44^ Char'ge of Embezzlement 

artillery without, proposed the health of the waiter who had sa 
ably officiated. This done, he bethought him of the cook, who- 
was sent for to return thanks ; but the artillery officer had by 
this time got wind of the affair, and feeling that more than 
enough powder had been wasted on the health of gentlemen 
who were determined to destroy it by the number of their pota- 
tions, took on himself the responsibility of ordering the gunners 
to stop. 

On another occasion he incurred the displeasure of the 
governor. General Hall, by fighting a duel — fortunately as 
harmless as that of Moore and Jeffirey — 

* When Little's leadless pistol met his eye, 
And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by,' 

as Byron says. The governor was sensible enough to wish to 
put down the ^ Gothic appeal to arms,' and was therefore the 
more irate. 

These circumstances must be taken into consideration in 
Hook's favour in examining the charge of embezzlement. It 
must also be stated that the information of the deficit was sent 
in a letter to the governor by a man named Allan, chief clerk 
in the Treasury, who had, for irregular conduct, been already 
threatened with dismissal. Allan had admitted that he had 
known of the deficit for fifteen months, and yet he had not, 
till he was himself in trouble, thought of making it known to 
the proper authorities. Before his examination, which of course 
followed, could be concluded, Allan committed suicide. Now, 
does it not, on the face of it, seem of the highest probability 
that this man was the real delinquent, and that knowing that 
Hook had all the responsibiHty, and having taken fair precau- 
tions against his own detection, he had anticipated a discovery 
of the afiair by a revelation, incriminating the treasurer? 
Quien sabe; — dead men tell no tales. 

The chest, however, was examined, and the deficit found far 
greater yet than had been reported. Hook could not explain^ 
could not understand it at all ; but if not criminal, he had 
necessarily been careless. • He was arrested, thrown into prison, 
and by the first vessel despatched to England to take his trial, 
his property of every kind having been sold for the Government, 



Misfortune, 447 

Hook, in utter destitution, might be supposed to have lost his 
usual spirits, but he could not resist a joke. At St. Helena he 
met an old friend going out to the Cape, who, surprised at see- 
ing him on his return voyage after a residence of only five years, 
said : ' I hope you are not going home for your health.' — ^ Why,' 
said Theodore, ' I am sorry to say they think there is something 
wrong in the chest, ^ ' Something wrong in the chest ' became 
henceforward the ordinary phrase in London society in referring 
to Hook's scrape. ^ 

Arrived in England, he was set free, the Government here 
having decided that he could not be criminally tried ; and thus 
Hook, guilty or not, had been ruined and disgraced for life for 
simple carelessness. True, the custody of a nation's property 
makes negligence almost criminal ; but that does not excuse the 
punishment of a man before he is tried. 

He was summoned, however, to the Colonial Audit Board, 
where he underwent a trying examination ; after which he was 
declared to be in the debt of Government : a writ of extent 
was issued against him ; nine months were passed in that de- 
lightful place of residence — a Sponging-house, which he then 
exchanged for the * Rules of the Bench' — the only rules which 
have no exception. From these he was at last liberated, in 
1825, on the understanding that he was to repay the money to 
Government if at any time he should be in a position to do so. 

His liberation was a tacit acknowledgment of his innocence 
of the charge of robbery ; his encumberment with a debt caused 
by another's delinquencies was, we presume, a signification of 
his responsibility and some kind of punishment for his careless- 
ness. Certainly it was hard upon Hook, that, if innocent, he 
should not have gone forth without a stain on his character for 
honesty ; and it was unjust, that, if guilty, he should not have 
been punished. The judgment was one of those compromises 
with stern justice which are seldom satisfactory to either party. 

The fact was that, guilty or not guilty. Hook had been both 
incompetent and inconsiderate. Doubtless he congratulated 
himself highly on receiving, at the age of twenty-five, an ap- 
pointment worth ^2,000 a year in the paradise of the worli ; 
but how short-sighted his satisfaction, since this very appoint- 



448 Doubly Disgraced. 

ment left him some ten years later a pauper to begin life anew 
with an indeUble stain on his character. It was absurd to give 
so young a man such a post j but it was absolutely wrong in 
Hook not to do his utmost to carry out his duties properly. 
Nay, he had trifled with the public money in the same liberal 
— perhaps a more liberal — spirit as if it had been his own — 
made advances and loans here and there injudiciously, and taken 
little heed of the consequences. Probably, at this day, the 
common opinion acquits Hook of a designed and complicated 
fraud ; but common opinion never did acquit him of miscon- 
duct, and even by his friends this affair was looked upon with 
a suspicion that preferred silence to examination. 

But why take such pains to exonerate Hook from a charge of 
robbery, when he was avowedly guilty of as bad a sin, of which 
the law took no cognizance, and which society forgave far more 
easily than it could have done for robbing the State ? Soon 
after his return from the Mauritius, he took lodgings in the 
cheap, but unfashionable neighbourhood of Somers Town. 
Here, in the moment of his misfortune, when doubting whether 
disgrace, imprisonment, or what not awaited him, he sought 
solace in the affection of a young woman, of a class certainly 
much beneath his, and of a character unfit to make her a valu- 
able companion to him. Hook had received little moral train- 
ing, and had he done so, his impulses were sufficiently strong to 
overcome any amount of principle. With this person — to use 
the modern slang which seems to convert a glaring sin into a 
social misdemeanour — ' he formed a connection/ In other 
words, he destroyed her virtue. Hateful as such an act is, we 
must, before we can condemn a man for it without any recom- 
mendation to mercy, consider a score of circumstances which 
have rendered the temptation stronger, and the result almost 
involuntary. Hook was not a man of high moral character — 
very far from it — but we need not therefore suppose that he sat 
down coolly and deliberately, like a villain in a novel, to effect 
the girl's ruin. But the Rubicon once passed, how difficult is 
the retreat ! There are but two paths open to a man, who 
would avoid living a life of sin : the one, to marry his victim ; 
the other, to break off the connection before it is too late. The 



No Effort to Remove the Stain. 449 

first is, of course, the more projoer course ; but there are cases 
where marriage is impossible. From the latter a man of any 
heart must shrink with horror. Yet there are cases, even, where 
the one sin will prove the least — where she who has loved too 
well may grieve bitterly at parting, yet will be no more open to 
temptation than if she had never fallen. Such cases are rare, 
and it is not probable that the young person with whom Hook 
had become connected would have retrieved the fatal error. 
She became a mother, ^id there was no retreat. It is clear 
that Hook ought to have married her. It is evident that he 
was selfish and wrong not to do so ; — yet he shrank from it, 
weakly, wickedly, and he was punished for his shrinking. He 
had suflicient feeling not to throw his victim over, yet he was 
content to live a life of sin, and to keep her in such a life. This 
is perhaps the blackest stain on Hook's character. When Fox 
married, in consequence of a similar connection, he ^ settled 
down,' retrieved his early errors, and became a better man, 
morally, than he had ever been. Hook ought to have married. 
It was the cowardly dread of public opinion that deterred him 
from doing so, and, in consequence, he was never happy, and 
felt that this connection was a perpetual burden to him. 

Wrecked and ruined. Hook had no resource but his literary 
talents, and it is to be deplored that he should have prostituted 
these to serve an ungentlemanly and dishonourable party in 
their onslaught upon an unfortunate woman. Whatever may 
be now thought of the queen of ^ the greatest gentleman' — or 
roice — of Europe, those who hunted her down will never be par- 
doned, and Hook was one of those. We have cried out against 
an Austrian general for condemning a Hungarian lady to the 
lash, and we have seen, with delight, a mob chase him through 
the streets of London and threaten his very life. But we have 
not only pardoned, but even praised, our favourite wit for far 
worse conduct than this. Even if we allow, which we do not, 
that the queen was one half as bad as her enemies, or rather 
her husband's parasites, would make her out, we cannot forgive 
the men who, shielded by their incognito, and perfecdy free 
from danger of any kind, set upon a woman with libels, invec- 
tives, ballads, epigrams, and lampoons, which a lady could 

29 



450 Attacks oil the Queen, 

scarcely read, and of which a royal lady, and many an English 
gentlewoman, too, were the butts. 

The vilest of all the vile papers of that day was the ' John 
Bull,' now settled down to a quiet periodical. Perhaps the 
real John Bull, heavy, good-natured lumberer as he is, was 
never worse represented than in this journal which bore his 
name, but had little of his kindly spirit. Hook was its origin- 
ator, and for a long time its main supporter. Scurrility, scandal, 
libel, baseness of all kinds formed the fuel with which it blazed, 
and the wit, bitter, unflinching, unsparing, which puffed the 
flame up, was its chief recommendation. 

No more disgraceful climax was ever reached by a disgrace- 
ful dynasty of profligates than that which found a King of Eng- 
land — long, as Regent, the leader of the profligate and de- 
graded — at war with his injured Queen. None have deserved 
better the honest gratitude of their country than those who, 
like Henry Brougham, defended the oppressed woman in spite 
of opposition, obloquy, and ridicule. 

But we need not go deeply into a history so fresh in the 
minds of all, as that blot which shows John Bull himself up- 
holding a -vM'etched dissipated monarch against a wife, who, 
whatever her faults, was still a woman, and whatever her spirit 
— for she had much of it, and showed it grandly at need — ^was 
still a lady. Suflice it to say that ' John Bull ' was the most 
violent of the periodicals that attacked her, and that Theodore 
Hook, no Puritan himself, was the principal writer in that 
paper. 

If you can imagine ' Punch ' turned Conservative, incorpo- 
rated in one paper with the * Morning Herald,' so that a column 
of news was printed side by side with one of a jocular character, 
and these two together devoted without principle to the sup- 
port of a party, the attack of Whiggism, and an unblushing 
detraction of the character of one of our princesses, you can 
form some idea of what ' John Bull ' was in those days. There 
is, however, a diflerence : ^ Punch' attacks public characters, and 
ridicules public events ; ^ John Bull ' dragged out the most re- 
tired from their privacy, and attacked them with calumnies for 
which, often, there was no foundation. Then, again, ' Punch ' 



An hicongriLOits Mixture, 451 

is not nearly so bitter as was ' John Bull :' there is not in the 
' London Charivari ' a determination to say everything that 
spite can invent against any particular set or party ; there is a 
good nature, still, in master ' Punch.' It was quite the reverse 
in ^John Bull,' established for one purpose, and devoted to 
that. Yet the wit in Theodore's paper does not rise much 
higher than that of our modern laughing philosopher. 

Of Hook's contributions the most remarkable was the 
'Ramsbottom Letters^ in which Mrs. Lavinia Dorothea Rams- 
bottom describes all the memory bilho7is of her various tours at 
home and abroad, always, of course, with more or less allusion 
to political affairs. The ^ fun ' of these letters is very inferior 
to that of ' Jeames ' or of the ' Snob Papers,' and consists more 
in Malaprop absurdities and a wide range of bad puns, than 
in any real wit displayed in them. Of the style of both, we 
take an extract anywhere : — 

' Oh ! Mr. Bull, Room is raley a beautiful place. We 
entered it by the Point of Molly, which is just like the Point 
and Sally at Porchmouth, only they call Sally there Port, which 
is not known in Room. The Tiber is a nice river, it looks 
yellow, but it does the same there as the Thames does here. 
We hired a carry-lettz and a cocky-oUy, to take us to the Church 
of Salt Peter, which is prodigious big ; in the centre of the 
pizarro there is a basilisk very high, on the right and left two 
handsome foundlings ; and the farcy, as Mr. Fulmer called it, 
is ornamented with collateral statutes of some of the Apostates.' 

We can quite imagine that Hook wrote many of these letters 
when excited by wine. Some are laughable enough, but the 
majority are so deplorably stupid, reeking with puns and 
scurrility, that when the temporary interest was gone, there 
was nothing left to attract the reader. It is scarcely possible to 
laugh at the Joe-Millerish mistakes, the old world puns, and the 
trite stories of Hook ^remains.' Remains! indeed; they had 
better have remained where they were. 

Besides prose of this kind. Hook contributed various jingles 
— there is no other name for them — arranged to popular tunes, 
and intended to become favourites with the country people. 
These like the prose effusions, served the purpose of an hour, 



452 Hook's Sairrility, 

and have no interest now. Whether they were ever really- 
popular remains to be proved. Certes, they are forgotten now, 
and long since even in the most Conservative corners of the 
country. Many of these have the appearance of having been 
originally recitati, and their amusement must have depended 
chiefly on the face and manner of the singer — Hook himself; 
but in some he displayed that vice of rhyming which has often 
made nonsense go down, and which is tolerable only when 
introduced in the satire of a ^ Don Juan' or the first-rate 
mimicry of ' Rejected Addresses.' Hook had a most wonderful 
facility in concocting out-of-the-way rhymes, and a few verses 
from his song on Clubs will suffice for a good specimen of his 
talent : — 

' If any man loves comfort, and has little cash to buy it, he 
Should get into a crowded club — a most select society ; 
While solitude and mutton-cutlets serve infelix uxor, he 

May have his club (Like Hercules), and revel there in luxury. 

Bow, wow, wow, &c. 

'Yes, clubs knock houses on the head ; e'en Hatchett's can't demoHsh thero ; 

Joy grieves to see their magnitude, and Long longs to abolish them. 
The inns are out ; hotels for single men scarce keep alive on it ; 
While none but houses that are in the family way thrive on it. 

Bow, WQW, wow, &c, 

* There's first the Athenseum Club, so wise, there's not a man of it, 

That has not sense enough for six (in fact, that is the plan of it) ; 
The very waiters answer you with eloquence Socratical ; 

And always place the knives and forks in order mathematical. 

Bow, wow, wow, &o. 
« « # « # 

* E'en Isis has a house in town, and Cam abandons her city. 
The master now hangs out at the Trinity University. 

* * * # ^ 

* The Union Club is quite superb ; its best apartment daily is, 

The lounge of lawyers, doctors, merchants, beaux, cum multis aliis. 
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

* The Travellers are in Pall Mall, and smoke cigars so cosily. 

And dream they climb the highest Alps, or rove the plains of Moselai, 
»iP * w w ^ 

* These are the stages which all men propose to play their parts upon, 
For clubs are what the Londoners have clearly set their hearts upon. 

Bow, wow, wow, tiddy-iddy-iddy-iddy, bow, wow, wow,' &c. 

This is one of the harmless ballads of * Bull' Some of the 
political ones are scarcely fit to print in the present day. We 
cannot wonder that ladies of a certain position gave out that 




Forticne and Popularity, 45 3 

\ woul ^ not receive any one who took in this paper. It 
fous to the last degree, and Theodore Hook was the 
soul of it. He preserved his incognito so well, that in spite of 
all attempts to unearth him, it was many years before he could 
be certainly fixed upon as a writer in its columns. He even 
went to the length of writing letters and articles against himself, 
in order to disarm suspicion. 

Hook now lived and thrived purely on literature. He pub- 
lished many novels — gone where the bad novels go, and unread 
in the present day, unless in some remote country town, which 
boasts only a very meagre circulating library. Improbability 
took the place of natural painting in them ; punning supplied 
that of better wit ; and personal portraiture was so freely used, 
that his most intimate friends — old Mathews, for instance — did 
not escape. 

Meanwhile Hook, making a good fortune, returned to his 
convivial life, and the enjoyment — if enjoyment it be — of 
general society. He Hhrew out his bow window' on the 
strength of his success with ' John Bull,' and spent much more 
than he had. He mingled freely in all the London circles of 
thirty years ago, whose glory is still fresh in the minds of most 
of us, and everywhere his talent as an improvisatore, and his 
conversational powers, made him a general favourite. 

Unhappy popularity for Hook ! He, who was yet deeply in 
debt to the nation — who had an illegitimate family to maintain, 
who owed in many quarters more than he could ever hope to 
pay — was still fool enough to entertain largely, and receive both 
nobles and wits in the handsomest manner. Why did he not 
live quietly ? why not, like Fox, marry the unhappy woman 
whom he had made the mother of his children, and content 
himself with trimming vines and rearing tulips? Why, forsooth? 
because he was Theodore Hook, thoughtless and foolish to the 
last. The jester of the people must needs be a fool. Let him 
take it to his conscience that he was not as much a knave. 

In his latter years Hook took to the two dissipations most 
likely to bring him into misery — play and drink. He was 
utterly unfitted for the former, being too gay a spirit to sit down 
and calculate chances. He lost considerably, and the more he 



454 ^^^^ End. 

lost the more he played. Drinking became almost a necessity 
with him. He had a reputation to keep up in society, and had 
not the moral courage to retire from it altogether. Writing, 
improvising, conviviality, play, demanded stimulants. His 
mind was overworked in every sense. He had recourse to the 
only remedy, and in drinking he found a temporary relief from 
anxiety, and a short-lived sustenance. There is no doubt that 
this man, who had amused London circles for many years, 
hastened his end by drinking. 

It is not yet thirty years since Theodore Hook died. He 
left the world on August the 24th, 1841, and by this time he 
remains in the memory of men only as a wit that was, a 
punster, a hoaxer, a sorry jester, with an ample fund of fun, 
but not as a great man in any way. Allowing everything for 
his education — the times he lived in, and the unhappy error of 
his early life — we may admit that Hook was not, in character, 
the worst of the wits. He died in no odour of sanctity, but 
he was not a blasphemer or reviler, like others of this class. 
He ignored the bond of matrimony, yet he remained faithful 
to the woman he had betrayed ; he was undoubtedly careless 
in the one responsible office with which he was intrusted, yet 
he cannot be taxed, taking all in all, with deliberate pecula- 
tion. His drinking and playing were bad — very bad. His 
improper connection was bad — very bad ; but perhaps the 
worst feature in his career was his connection with ' John Bull,' 
and his ready giving in to a system of low libel. There is no 
excuse for this but the necessity of living ; but Hook, had he 
retained any principle, might have made enough to live upon 
in a more honest manner. His name does, certainly, not stand 
out well among the wits of this country, but after all, since all 
were so bad. Hook may be excused as not being the worst of 
them. Requiescat m pace. 




SIDNEY SMITH. 

The 'Wise Wit.' — Oddities of the Father. — Verse-making at Winchester. — 
Curate Life on Sahsbury Plain. — Old Edinburgh. — Its Social and Archi- 
tectural Features. — Making Love Metaphysically. — The Old Scottish Sup- 
per. — The Men of Mark passing away^ — The Band of Young Spirits. — 
Brougham's Early Tenacity. — Fitting up Conversations. — ' Old School' 
Ceremonies. — The Speculative Society. — A Brilliant Set. — Sydney's Opinion 
of his Friends.— Holland House. — Preacher at the ' Foundhng.' — Sydney's 
'Grammar of Life.' — The Picture Mania. — A Living Comes at Last. — ^The 
wit's Ministry. — The Parsonage House at Foston-le-Clay. — Country Quiet. 
The Universal Scratcher. — Country Life and Country Prejudice. — The 
Genial Magistrate. — Glimpse of Edinburgh Society. — Mrs. Grant of Laggan. 
A Pension Difficulty. — Jeffrey and Cockburn, — Craigcrook. — Sydney Smith's 
Cheerfulness. — His Rheumatic Armour. — No Bishopric. — Becomes Canon 
of St. Paul's. — Anecdotes of Lord Dudley. — A Sharp Reproof. — Sydney's 
Classification of Society.— Last Strokes of Humour. 




MITH'S reputation — to quote from Lord Cockbum's 
' Memorial of Edinburgh ' — ^ here, then, was the 
same as it has been throughout his hfe, that of a wise 
wit.' A wit he was, but we must deny him the reputation of 
being a beau. For that, nature, no less than his holy office, 
had disqualified him. Who that ever beheld him in a London 
drawing-room, when he went to so many dinners that he used 
to say he was a walking patty — who could ever miscall him a 
beau ? How few years have we numbered since one perceived 
the large bulky form in canonical attire — the plain, heavy face, 
large, long, unredeemed by any expression, except that of sound 
hard sense — and thought, *can this be the Wit?' How few 
years is it since Henry Cockburn, hating London, and coming 
but rarely to what he called the * devil's drawing-room,' stood 
near him, yet apart, for he was the most diffident of men ; his 
wonderful luminous eyes, his clear, almost youthful, vivid com- 
plexion, contrasting brightly with the gray, pallid, prebendal 
complexion of Sydney ? how short a time since Francis Jeftery, 



45 6 The ' Wise Wit! 

the smallest of great men, a beau in his old age, a wit to the 
last, stood hat in hand to bandy words with Sydney ere he 
rushed off to some still gayer scene, some more fashionable 
circle : yet they are all gone — gone from sight, living in 
memory alone. 

Perhaps it was time : they might have lived, indeed, a few 
short years longer ; we might have heard their names amongst 
us ; Hstened to their voices ; gazed upon the deep hazel, ever- 
sparkling eyes, that constituted the charm of Cockburn's hand- 
some face, and made all other faces seem tame and dead : we 
might have marvelled at the ingenuity, the happy turns of ex- 
pression, the polite sarcasm of Jeffrey ; we might have revelled 
in Sydney Smith's immense natural gift of fun, and listened to 
the ' wise wit,' regretting with Lord Cockburn, that so much 
worldly wisdom seemed almost inappropriate in one who 
should have been in some freer sphere than within the pale of 
holy orders ; we might have done this, but the picture might 
have been otherwise. Cockburn, whose intellect rose, and 
became almost sublime, as his spirit neared death, might have 
sunk into the depression of conscious weakness ; Jeffery might 
have repeated himself, or turned hypochondriacal ; Sydney 
Smith have grown garrulous : let us not grieve ; they went in 
their prime of intellect, before one quality of mind had been 
touched by the frostbite of age. 

Sydney Smith's life is a chronicle of literary society. He 
was born in 177 1, and he died in 1845. What a succession of 
great men does that period comprise ! Scott, Jeffrey, Mackin- 
tosh, Dugald Stewart, Horner, Brougham and Cockburn were 
his familiars — a constellation which has set, we fear, for ever. 
Our world presents nothing like it : we must look back, not 
around us, for strong minds, cultivated up to the nicest point. 
Our age is too diffused, too practical for us to hope to witness 
again so grand a spectacle. 

From his progenitors Sydney Smith inherited one of his 
best gifts, great animal spirits — the only spirits one wants in 
this racking life of ours; and his were transmitted to him by 
his father. That father, Mr. Robert Smith, was odd as well 
as clever. His oddities seem to have been coupled with folly ; 



Oddities of the Father* 457 

but that of Sydney was soberized by thought, and swayed by 
intense common sense* The father had a mania for buying 
and altering places : one need hardly say that he spoiled them. 
Having done so, he generally sold them ; and nineteefi various 
places were thus the source of expense to him, and of injury 
to the pecuniary interests of his family. 

This strange spendthrift married a Miss Olier, a daughter of 
a French emigrant, from Languedoc. Every one may re- 
member the charming 'attributes given by Miss Kavanagh, in 
her delicious tale, 'Nathalie,' to the French women of the 
South. This Miss Olier seems to have realized all one's ideas 
of the handsome, sweet-tempered, high-minded Southrons of 
la belle Franee. To her Sydney Smith traced his native gaiety ; 
her beauty did not, certainly, pass to him as well as to some 
of her other descendants. When Talleyrand w^as living in 
England as an emigrant, on intimate terms with Robert Smith, 
Sydney's brother, or Bobus, as he was called by his intimates, 
the conversation turned one day on hereditary beauty. Bobus 
spoke of his mother's personal perfections : ' Ah, mon ami^ 
cried Talleyrand, deiait apparemment^ fnonsieur : voire pere qui 
n'etaitpas hieii,^ 

This Bobus was the schoolfellow at Eton of Canning and 
Frere ; and with John Smith and those two youths, wrote the 
' Microcosm.' Sydney, on the other hand, was placed on the 
Foundation, at Winchester, which was then a stern place of 
instruction for a gay, spirited, hungry boy. Courtenay, his 
younger brother, went with him^ but ran away twice. To owe 
one's education to charity was, in those days, to be half starved. 
Never was there enough, even of the coarsest food, to satisfy 
the boys, and the urchins, fresh from home, were left to fare as 
they might. ' Neglect, abuse, and vice were,' Sydney used to 
say, 'the pervading evils of Winchester; and the system of 
teaching, if one may so call it, savoured of the old monastic 

narrowness I believe, when a boy at school, I made above 

ten thousand Latin verses, and no man in his senses would 
dream of ever making another in after-life. So much for life 
and time wasted.' The verse-inciting process is, nevertheless, 
remorselessly carried on during three years more at Oxford 



458 At Nezv College, Oxford. 

and is much oftener the test of patient stupidity than of aspir- 
ing talent. Yet of what stupendous importance it is in the 
attainment of scholarships and prizes ; and how zealous, how 
tenacious, are dons and ' coaches' in holding to that which far 
higher classics, the Germans, regard with contempt ! 

Sydney's proficiency promoted him to be captain of the 
school, and he left Winchester for New College, Oxford — one 
of the noblest and most abused institutions then of that grand 
university. Having obtained a scholarship, as a matter of 
course, and afterwards a fellowship, he remarked that the usual 
bumpers of port wine at college were as much the order of the 
day among the Fellows as Latin verses among the under- 
graduates. We may not, however, picture to ourselves Sydney 
as partaking of the festivities of the common room ; with more 
probability let us imagine him wandering with steady gait, 
even after Hall — a thing not even then or now certain in col- 
leges — in those evergreen, leafy, varied gardens, flanked by 
that old St. Peter's church on the one side, and guarded by 
the high wall, once a fortification, on the other. He was poor, 
and therefore safe, for poverty is a guardian angel to an under- 
graduate, and work may protect even the Fellow from utter 
deterioration. 

He was turned out into the world by his father with his 
hundred a year from the Fellowship, and never had a far- 
thing from the old destroyer of country-seats afterwards. He 
never owed a sixpence ; nay, he paid a debt of thirty pounds, 
which Courtenay, who had no iron in his character, had in- 
curred at Winchester, and had not the courage to avow. The 
next step was to choose a profession. The bar would have been 
Sydney's choice ; but the church was the choice of his father. 
It is the cheapest channel by which a man may pass into gen- 
teel poverty ; ' wit and independence do not make bishops,' as 
Lord Cockburn remarks. We do not, however, regard, as he 
does, Sydney Smith as Most' by being a churchman. He was 
happy, and made others happy ; he was good, and made others 
good. Who can say the same of a successful barrister, or of a 
popular orator ? His first sphere was in a curacy on Salisbury 
Plain; one of his earUest clerical duties was to marry his 



Curate-Life on Salisbury Plain, 459 

brother Robert (a barrister) to Miss Vernon, aunt to Lord 
Lansdowne. ^All I can tell you of the marriage,' Sydney 
wrote to his mother, ^is that he cried, she cried, I cried.' It 
was celebrated in the library at Bowood, where Sydney so 
often enchanted the captivating circle afterwards by his wit. 

Nothing could be more gloomy than the young pastor's life 
on Salisbury Plain : ^ the first and poorest pauper of the hamlet,' 
as he calls a curate, he was seated down among a few scattered 
cottages on this vast flat ; visited even by the butcher's cart 
only once a week from Salisbury; accosted by few human 
beings ; shunned by all who loved social life. But the proba- 
tion was not long; and after being nearly destroyed by a 
thunder-storm in one of his rambles, he quitted Salisbury Plain, 
after two years, for a more genial scene. 

There was an hospitable squire, a Mr. Beach, living in Smith's 
parish ; the village of Netherhaven, near Amesbury. Mr. Beach 
had a son ; the quiet Sundays at the Hall were enlivened by 
the curate's company at dinner, and Mr. Beach found his guest 
both amusing and sensible, and begged him to becom*e tutor to 
the young squire. Smith accepted ; and went away with his 
pupil, intending to visit Germany. The French Revolution 
was, however, at its height. Germany was impracticable, and 
* we were driven,' Sydney wrote . to his mother, ^ by stress of 
politics, into Edinburgh.' 

This accident, — this seeming accident, — was the foundation 
of Sydney Smith's opportunities'; not of his success, for that 
his own merits procured, but of the direction to which his efforts 
were applied. He would have been eminent, wherever destiny 
had led him ; but he was thus made to be useful in one especial 
manner; 'his lines had, indeed, fallen in pleasant places.' 

Edinburgh, in 1797, was not, it is almost needless to say, 
the Edinburgh of i860. An ancient, picturesque, high-built 
looking city, with its wynds and closes, it had far more the 
characteristics of an old French ville de province than of a 
northern capital. The foundation-stone of the new College 
was laid in 1789, but the building was not finisned until more 
than forty years afterwards. The edifice then stood in the midst 
of fields and gardens. ' Often,' writes Lord Cockburn, ' did 



460 Old Edinburgh, 

we stand to admire the blue and yellow crocuses rising through 
the clean earth in the first days of spring, in the house of Doc- 
tor Monro (the second), whose house stood in a small field 
entering from Nicolson Street, within less than a hundred yards 
from the college.' 

The New Town was in progress when Sydney Smith and his 
pupil took refuge in ' Auld Reekie.' With the rise of every 
street some fresh innovation in manners seemed also to begin. 
Lord Cockburn, wedded as he was to his beloved Reekie, yet 
unprejudiced and candid on all points, ascribes the change in 
customs to the intercourse with the English, and seems to date 
it from the Union. Thus the overflowing of the old town into 
fresh spaces, * implied,' as he remarks, ^ a general alteration of 
our habits.' 

As the dwellers in the Faubourg St. Germain regard their 
neighbours across the Seine, in the Faubourg St. Honore, with 
disapproving eyes, so the sojourners in the Canongate and 
the Cowgate considered that the inundation of modern popu- 
lation vulgarized their ^prescriptive gentilities.' Cockburn's 
description of a Scottish assembly in the olden time is most 
interesting. 

^ For example. Saint Cecilia's Hall was the only public resort 
of the musical ; and besides being our most selectly fashionable 
place of amusement, was the best and most beautiful concert- 
room I have ever seen. And there have I myself seen most 
of our literary and fashionable gentlemen, predominating with 
their side curls and frills, and ruffles, and silver buckles ; and 
our stately matrons stiffened in hoops, and gorgeous satin ; and 
our beauties with high-heeled shoes, powdered and pomatumed 
hair, and lofty and composite head-dresses. All this was in the 
Cowgate ; the last retreat now-a-days of destitution and disease. 
The building still stands, through raised and changed. When I 
last saw it, it seemed to be partly an old-clothesman's shop and 
partly a brazier's.' Balls were held in the beautiful rooms of 
George Square, in spite of the ' New Town piece of presumption,' 
that is, an attempt to force the fashionable dancers of the reel 
into the George Street apartments. 



Making L ove Metaphysically. 46 1 

' And here/ writes Lord Cockburn, looking back to the days 
when he was that ' ne'er-do-weel ' Harry Cockburn, ^ were the 
last remains of the ball-room discipline of the preceding age. 
Martinet dowagers and venerable beaux acted as masters and 
mistresses of ceremonies, and made all the preliminary arrange- 
ments. No couple could dance unless each party was provided 
with a ticket prescribing the precise place, in the precise dance. 
If there was no ticket, the gentleman or the lady was dealt 
with as an intruder, arid turned out of the dance. If the ticket 
had marked upon it — say for a country-dance, the figures, 3, 5 ; 
this meant that the holder was to place himself in the 3rd dance, 
and 5th from the top ; and if he was anywhere else, he was set 
right or excluded. And the partner's ticket must correspond. 
Woe on the poor girl who with ticket 2, 7, was found opposite 
a youth marked 5, 9 ! It was flirting without a licence, and 
looked very ill, and would probably be reported by the ticket- 
director of that dance to the mother.' 

All this had passed away ; and thus the aristocracy of a few 
individuals was ended ; and society, freed from some of its 
restraints, flourished in another and more enlightened way than 
formerly. 

There were still a sufficient number of peculiarities to gratify 
one who had an eye to the ludicrous. Sydney Smith soon dis- 
covered that it is a work of time to impart a humorous idea to 
a true Scot. ' It requires,' he used to say, ' a surgical operation 
to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.' ^ They are 
so embued with metaphysics, that they even make love meta- 
physically. I overheard a young lady of my acquaintance, at 
a dance in Edinburgh, exclaim in a sudden pause of the music, 
"What you say, my Lord, is very true of love in the abstract, 
but, — " here the fiddlers began fiddling furiously, and the rest 
was lost.' He was, however, most deeply touched by the noble 
attribute of that nation which retains what is so rare — the attri- 
bute of being true friends. He did ample justice to their 
kindliness of heart. ' If you meet with an accident,' he said, 
* half Edinburgh immediately flocks to your doors to inquire 
after your ///;r hand, ox yowx pure foot.' 'Their temper.', he 
observed, ' stands anything but an attack on their climate; even 



462 The Old Scottish Supper. 

Jeffrey cannot shake off the illusion that myrtles flourish at 
Craig Crook/ The sharp reviewer stuck to his myrtle allusions, 
and treated Smith's attempts with as much contempt as if he 
had been a ' wild visionary, who had never breathed his caller 
air,' nor suffered under the rigours of his climate, nor spent five 
years in ^ discussing metaphysics and medicine in that garret end 
of the earth, — that knuckle end of England — that land of Cal- 
vin, oat-cakes, and sulphur,' as Smith termed Scotland. 

During two years he braved the winters, in which he declared 
hackney-coaches were drawn by four horses on account of the 
snow ; where men were blown flat down on the face by the 
winds ; and where even ^ experienced Scotch fowls did not dare 
to cross the streets, but sidled along, tails aloft, without ventur- 
ing to encounter the gale.' He luxuriated, nevertheless, in the 
true Scotch supper, than which nothing more pleasant and more 
unwholesome has ever been known in Christendom. Edin- 
burgh is said to have been the only place where people dined 
twice a day. The writer of this memoir is old enough to re- 
member the true Scottish Attic supper before its final ' fading 
into wine and water,' as Lord Cockburn describes its decline. 
' Suppers,' Cockburn truly says, ' are cheaper than dinners,' and 
Edinburgh, at that time, was the cheapest place in Great Britain. 
Port and sherry were the staple wines : claret, duty free in 
Scotland until 1780, was indeed beginning to be a luxury; it 
was no longer the ordinary beverage, as it was when as Mac- 
kenzie, the author of the ^ Man of Feeling,' described — it used, 
upon the arrival of a cargo, to be sent through the town on a 
cart with a horse before it, so that every one might have a 
sample, by carrying a jug to be filled for sixpence : still even 
at the end of the eighteenth century it was in frequent use. 
Whisky toddy and plotty (red wine mulled with spices) came 
into the supper-room in ancient flagons or stoups, after a lengthy 
repast of broiled chickens, roasted moorfowl, pickled mussels, 
flummery, and numerous other good things had been discussed 
by a party who ate as if they had not dined that day. ^ We 
will eat,' Lord Cockburn used to say after a long walk, ^ a pro- 
fligate supper,' — a supper without regard to discretion, or diges- 
tion ; and he usually kept his word. 



The Men of Mark Passing Away. 463 

In Edinburgh, Sydney Smith formed the intimate acquaint- 
ance of Lord Jeftrey, and that acquaintance ripened into a 
friendship only closed by death. The friendship of worthy, sen- 
sible men he looked upon as one of the greatest pleasures in 
life. 

The ^ old suns,' Lord Cockburn tells us, ^ were setting when 
the band of great thinkers and great writers who afterwards 
concocted the " Edinburgh Review," were rising into celebrity.' 
Principal Robertson,, J;he historian, had departed this life in 
1793, a kindly old man. With beaming eyes underneath his 
frizzed and curled wig, and a trumpet tied with a black ribbon 
to the button-hole of his coat, for he was deaf, this most excel- 
lent of writers showed how he could be also the most zealous 
of diners. Old Adam Ferguson, the historian of Rome, had 
' set,' also : one of the finest specimens of humanity had gone 
from among his people in him. Old people, not thirty years 
ago, delighted to tell you how ^ Adam,' when chaplain to the 
Black Watch, that glorious 42nd, refused to retire to his proper 
place, the rear, during an action, but persisted in being engaged 
in front. He , was also gone ; and Dugald Stewart filled his 
vacant place in the professorship of moral philosophy. Dr. 
Henry, the historian, was also at rest ; after a long laborious 
life, and the compilation of a dull, though admirable History 
of England, the design of which, in making a chapter on arts, 
manners, and literature separate from the narrative, appears to 
have suggested to Macaulay his inimitable disquisition on the 
same topics. Dr. Henry showed to a friend a pile of books 
which he had gone through, merely to satisfy himself and the 
world as to what description of trousers was worn by the Saxons. 
His death was calm as his life. ^ Come out to me directly,' he 
wrote to his friend. Sir Harry Moncrieff : ' I have got something 
to do this week ; I have got to die.' 

It was in 1801, that Dugald Stewart began his course of 
lectures on political economy. Hitherto all public favour had 
been on the side of the Tories, and independence of thought 
was a sure way to incur discouragement from the Bench, in the 
Church, and from every Government functionary. Lectures.on 
political economy were regarded as innovations; but they formed 



464 The Band of Young Spirits. 

a forerunner of that event which had made several important 
changes in our Hterary and pohtical hemisphere : the com- 
mencement of the ^Edinburgh Review.' This undertaking was 
the work of men who were separated from the mass of their 
brother-townsmen by their poHtics ; their isolation as a class 
binding them the more closely together by links never broken, 
in a brotherhood of hope and ambition, to which the natural 
spirits of Sydney Smith, of Cockburn, and of Jeffrey, gave an 
irresistible charm. 

Among those who the most early in life ended a career of 
promise was Francis Horner. He was the son of a linen-draper 
in Edinburgh ; or, as the Scotch call it, following the French, 
a merchant. Horner's best linen for sheets, and table-cloths, 
and all the under garments of housekeeping, are still highly 
esteemed by the trade. 

*My desire to know Horner,' Sydney Smith states, 'arose 
from my being cautioned against him by some excellent and 
feeble-minded people to whom I brought letters 'of introduc- 
tion, and who represented him as a person of violent political 
opinions.' Sydney, Smith interpreted this to mean that Horner 
was a man who thought for himself; who loved truth better 
than he loved Dundas (Lord Melville), then the tyrant of Scot- 
land. ' It is very curious to consider,' Sydney Smith wrote, in 
addressing Lady Holland, in 181 7, * in what manner Horner 
gained, in so extraordinary a degree, the affections of such a 
number of persons of both sexes, all ages, parties, and ranks 
in society ; for he was not remarkably good tempered, nor par- 
ticularly lively and agreeable ; and an inflexible politician on 
the unpopular side. The causes are, his high character for pro- 
bity, honour, and talents ; his fine countenance ; the benevolent 
interest he took in the concerns of all his friends \ his simple 
and gentlemanlike manners ; his untimely death.' ' Grave, 
studious, honourable, kind, everything Horner did,' says Lord 
Cockburn, ' was marked by thoughtfulness and kindness ;' a 
beautiful character, which was exhibited but briefly to his con- 
temporaries, but long remembered after his death. 

Henry Brougham was another of the Edinburgh band of 
young spirits. He was educated in the High School under 



Brougham's Early Tenacity. 465 

Luke Fraser, the tutor who trained Walter Scott and Francis 
Jeffrey. Brougham used to be pointed out ^as the fellow who had 
beat the master.' He had dared to differ with Fraser, a hot pe- 
dant, on some piece of Latinity. Fraser, irritated, punished 
the rebel, and thought the matter ended. But the next day 
* Harry,' as they called him, appeared, loaded with books, re- 
newed the charge, and forced Luke to own that he was 
beaten. ' It was th^ji,' says Lord Cockburn, ' that I first saw 
him.' 

After remaining two years in Edinburgh, Sydney Smith went 
southwards to marry a former schoolfellow of his sister Maria's 
— a Miss Pybus, to whom he had been attached and engaged 
at a very early period of his life. The young lady, who was ot 
West Indian descent, had some fortune ; but her husband's 
only stock, on which to begin housekeeping, consisted of six 
silver tea-spoons, worn away with use. One day he rushed 
into the room and threw these attenuated articles into her 
lap — 'There, Kate, I give you all my fortune, you lucky 
girl !' 

With the small dot^ and the thin silver-spoons, the young 
couple set up housekeeping in the ' garret end of the earth.' 
Their first difficulty was to know how money could be obtained 
to begin with, for Mrs. Smith's small fortune was settled on 
herself by her husband's wish. Two rows of pearls had been 
given her by her thoughtful mother. These she converted into 
money, and obtained for them ;^Soo. Several years after- 
wards, when visiting the shop at which she sold them, with n 
Miss Vernon and Miss Fox, Mrs. Smith saw her pearls, every 
one of which she knew. She asked what was the price. 
' ;^i,5oo,' was the reply. 

The sum, however, was all important to the thrifty couple. 
It distanced the nightmare of the poor and honest, — debt. 
;^75o was presented by Mr. Beach, in gratitude for the care 
of his son, to Smith. It was invested in the funds, and formed 
the nucleus of future savings, — ' Cen'est que le premier pas qui 
coute^ is a trite saying. ' Cest le premier pas qui gagne^ might 
be applied to this and similar cases. A little daughter — Lady 
Holland, the wife of the celebrated physician. Sir Henry Hoi- 



466 Fitting up Conversations, 

land — was sent to bless the sensible pair. Sydney had wished 
that she might be born with one eye, so that he might never 
lose her ; nevertheless, though she happened to be bom with 
two, he bore her secretly from the nursery, a few hours after 
her birth, to show her in triumph to the future Edinburgh Re- 
viewers. 

The birth of the * Edinburgh Review' quickly followed that 
of the young lady. Jeffrey, — then an almost starving barrister, 
living in the eighth or ninth flat of a house in Buccleuch Place, 
— Brougham, and Sydney Smith were the triumvirate who pro- 
.pounded the scheme. Smith being the first mover. He proposed 
a motto : ^ Tenui Musam meditanum avenir :' We cultivate lite- 
rature on a little oatmeal j but this being too near the truth, 
they took their motto from Publius Syrus ; ' of whom,' said 
Smith, * none of us had, I am sure, read a single line.' To this 
undertaking Sydney Smith devoted .his talents for more than 
twenty-eight years. 

Meantime, during the brief remainder of his stay in Edin- 
burgh, his circumstances improved. He had done that which 
most of the clergy are obliged to do — taken a pupil. He had 
now another, the son of Mr. Gordon, of Ellon; for each of 
these young men he received ;^4oo a year. He became to 
them a father and a friend ; he entered into all their amuse- 
ments. One of them saying that he could not find con- 
versation at the balls for his partners, ' Never mind,' cried 
Sydney Smith, ^ I'll fit you up in five minutes.' Accord- 
ingly he wrote down conversations for them amid bursts of 
laughter. 

Thus happily did years, which many persons would have 
termed a season of adversity, pass away. The chance which 
brought him to Edinburgh introduced him td a state of so- 
ciety never likely to be seen again in Scotland. Lord Cock- 
burn's ^ Memorials' afford an insight into manners, not only as 
regarded suppers, but on the still momentous point, of dinners. 
Three o'clock was the fashionable hour, so late as the com- 
mencement of the present century. That hour, ^ not without 
groans and predictions,' became four— and four was long and 
conscientiously adhered to. ' Inch by inch,' people yielded. 



^ Old School ' Ceremonies, 467 

and five continued to be the standard polite hour from 1806 to 
1820. * Six has at length prevailed.' 

The most punctilious ceremony existed. When dinner was 
announced, a file of ladies went first in strict order of prece- 
dence. ' Mrs. Colonel Such an One ;' ^ Mrs. Doctor Such an 
One,' and so on. Toasts were de rigiieur : no glass of wine 
was to be taken by a guest without comprehending a lady, or 
a covey of ladies. ^ I was present,' says Lord Cockburn, 'when 
the late Duke of Buccleuch took a glass of sherry by himself 
at the table of Charles Hope, then Lord Advocate, and this 
was noticed as a piece of ducal contempt.' Toasts, and when 
the ladies had retired, rounds of toasts, were drunk. ' The 
prandial nuisance,' Lord Cockburn wrote, ^ was horrible. But 
it was nothing to Avhat followed.' 

At these repasts, though less at these than at boisterous 
suppers, a frequent visitor at the same table with Sydney Smith 
was the illustrious Sir James Mackintosh, a man to whose deep- 
thinking mind the world is every day rendering justice. The 
son of a brave officer. Mackintosh was bom on the banks 
of Loch Ness : his mother, a Miss Fraser, was aunt to Mrs. 
Fraser Tytler, wife of Lord Woodhouselee, one of the judges of 
the Court of Session and mother of the late historian of that 
honoured name. 

Mackintosh had been studying at Aberdeen, in the same 
classes with Robert Hall, whose conversation, he avowed, had 
a great influence over his mind. He amved in Edinburgh 
about 1784, uncertain to what profession to belong; some- 
what anxious to be a bookseller, in order to revel in ^the 
paradise of books ;' he turned his attention, however, to me- 
dicine, and became a Brunonian, that is, a disciple of John 
Brown, the founder of a theory which he followed out to the 
extent in practice. The main feature of the now defunct 
system, which set scientific Europe in a blaze, seems to have 
been a mad indulgence of the passions; and an unbridled 
use of intoxicating liquors. Brown fell a victim to liis vices. 
Years after he had been laid in his grave, his daughter, Eu- 
phemia, being in great indigence, received real kindness from 
Sir James and Lady Mackintosh, the former of wliom used to 

30—2 



468 The Speculative Society, 

delight in telling the story of her father's saying to her : ' Effy, 
bring me the mooderate stimulus of a hoonderd draps o' laud- 
anum in a glass o' brandy/ 

Mackintosh had not quitted Edinburgh when Sydney Smith 
reached it. Smith became a member of the famous Specula- 
tive Society. Their acquaintance was renewed years afterwards 
in London. Who can ever forget the small, quiet dinners given 
by Mackintosh when living out of Parliament, and out of office 
in Cadogan Place ? Simple but genial were those repasts, 
forming a strong contrast to the Edinburgh dinners of yore. 
He had then long given up both the theory and practice of the 
Brunonians, and took nothing but light French and German 
wines, and these in moderation. His tall, somewhat high- 
shouldered, massive form ; his calm brow, mild, thoughtful ; his 
dignity of manner ; his gentleness to all ; his vast knowledge ; 
his wonderful appreciation of excellence ; his discrimination of 
faults — all combined to form one of the finest specimens ever 
seen, even in that illustrious period, of a philosopher and his- 
torian. 

Jeffiey and Cockburn were contrasts to one whom they ho- 
noured. Jeffrey, * the greatest of British critics,' was eight 
years younger than Mackintosh, having been born in 1773. He 
was the son of one of the depute clerks to the Supreme Court, 
not an elevated position, though one of great respectability. 
When Mackintosh and Sydney Smith first knew him in Edin- 
burgh, he was enduring, with all the impatience of his sensitive 
nature, what he called ' a slow, obscure, philosophical starva- 
tion' at the Scotch bar. 

^ There are moments,' he wrote, ^ when I think I could sell 
myself to the ministers or to the devil, in order to get above 
these necessities.' Like all men so situated, his depression 
came in fits. Short, spare, with regular, yet 7iot aristocratic 
features ; — speaking, brilliant, yet not pleasing eyes ; — a voice 
consistent with that mignon form; — a somewhat precise and 
anxious manner, there was never in Jeffrey that charm, that 
abandon, which rendered his valued friend, Henry Cockburn, 
the most delightful, the most beloved of men, the very idol of 
his native city. 



A Brilliant Set. 469 

The noble head of Cockburn, bald, almost in youth, with its 
pliant, refined features, and its fresh tint upon a cheek always 
clear, generally high in colour, was a strong contrast to the rigid 
petitesse of Jeffrey's physiognomy ; much more so to the large 
proportions of Mackintosh; or to the ponderous, plain, and, 
later in life, swarthy countenance of Sydney Smith. Lord Webb 
Seymour, the brother of the late Duke of Somerset, gentle, 
modest, intelligent, — Thomas Thomson, the antiquary, — and 
Charles and George 3ell, the surgeon and the advocate, — Mur- 
ray, afterwards Lord Murray, the generous pleader, who gave 
up to its rightful heirs an estate left him by a client, — and 
Brougham^formed the staple of that set now long since extinct. • 

It was partially broken up by Sydney Smith's coming, in 1803, 
to London. He there took a house in Doughty Street, being 
partial to legal society, which was chiefly to be found in that 
neighbourhood. 

Here Sir Samuel Romilly, Mackintosh, Scarlett (Lord Abinger), 
the eccentric and unhappy Mr. Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley, 
^ Conversation' Sharp, Rogers, and Luttrell, formed the circle 
in which Sidney delighted. He was still very poor, and obliged 
to sell the rest of his wife's jewels ; but his brother Robert 
allowed him ;^ioo a year, and lent him, when he subsequently 
removed into Yorkshire, ;^5oo. 

He had now a life of struggling, but those struggles were the 
lot of his early friends also ; Mackintosh talked of going to 
India as a lecturer ; Smith recommended Jeffrey to do the same. 
Happily, both had the courage and the sense to await for better 
times at home; yet Smith's opinion of Mackintosh was, that 
' he never saw so theoretical a head which contained so much 
practical understanding ;' and to Jeffrey he wrote : 

' You want nothing to be a great la^vyer, and nothing to be 
a great speaker, but a deeper voice — slower and more simple 
utterance — more humility of face and neck — and a greater con- 
tempt for esprit than men who have so much in general attain to.* 

The great event of Sydney Smith's first residence in London 
was his introduction at Holland House ; in that ' gilded room 
which furnished,' as he said, ^ the best and most agreeable 
society in the world/ his happiest hours were passed. John 



470 Sydney's Opinion of His Friends, 

Allen, whom Smith had introduced to Lord Holland, was the 
peer's librarian and friend. Mackintosh, who Sydney Smith 
thought only wanted a few bad qualities to get on in the world, 
Rogers, Luttrell, Sheridan, Byron, were among the ^ suns' that 
shone, where Addison had suffered and studied. 

Between Lord Holland and Sydney Smith the most cordial 
friendship existed ; and the eccentric and fascinating Lady Hol- 
land was his constant correspondent. Of this able woman, it 
was said by Talleyrand : 'Elk est toute assertion; maisquandon 
demande la preuve dest la son secret,^ Of Lord Holland, the 
keen diplomatist observed : ' Cest la bienveillance meme^ mais la 
bienveillance la plus perturbatrice^ qu'on ait jamais vue.'' 

Lord Holland did not commit the error ascribed by Rogers, 
in his Recollections, to Marlay, Bishop of Waterford, who 
when poor, with an income of only ;^4oo a year, used to give 
the best dinners possible ; but, when made a bishop, enlarged 
his table, and lost his fame — had no more good company — there 
was an end of his enjoyment : he had lords and ladies to his 
table — foolish people — foolish men — and foolish women — and 
there was an end of him and us. * Lord Holland selected his 
lords and ladies, not for their rank, but for their peculiar merits 
or acquirements.' Then even Lady Holland's oddities were 
amusing. When she wanted to get rid of a fop, she used to 
say : ' I beg your pardon, but I wish you would sit a little far- 
ther off ; there is something on your handkerchief which I don't 
quite like.' Or when a poor man happened to stand, after the 
fashion of the lords of creation, with his back close to the 
chimney-piece, she would cry out, ^ Have the goodness, sir, to 
stir the fire.' 

Lord Holland never asked anyone to dinner, ('not even 
me,' says Rogers, ' whom he had known so long,') without ask- 
ing Lady Holland. One day, shortly before his lordship's death, 
Rogers was coming out from Holland House when he met him. 
* Well, do you return to dinner ?' I - answered, ' No, I have 
not been invited.' The precaution, in fact, was necessary, for 
Lord Holland was so good-natured and hospitable that he 
would have had a crowd daily at his table had he been left to 
himself. 



Preacher at the ' Foundlifig. ' 47 r 

The death of Lord Holland completely broke up the unri- 
valled dinners, and the subsequent evenings in the ^gilded 
chamber.* Lady Holland, to whom Holland House was left 
for her life-time, declined to live there. With Holland House, 
the mingling of aristocracy with talent ; the blending ranks by 
force of intellect ; the assembling not only of all the celebrity 
that Europe could boast, but of all that could enhance private 
enjoyment, had ceased. London, the most intelligent of capi- 
tals, possesses not oi;ie single great house in which pomp and 
wealth are made subsidiary to the true luxury of intellectual 
conversation. 

On the morning of the day when Lord Holland's last illness 
began, these lines were written by him, and found after his death 
on his dressing-table : — 

' Nephew of Fox, and Friend of Grey, 

Sufficient for my fame, 
If those who know me best shall say 
I tarnished neither name.' 

Of him his best friend, Sydney Smith, left a short but discrimi- 
native character. ' There was never (amongst other things he 
says) a better heart, or one more purified from all the bad pas- 
sions — more abounding in charity and compassion — or which 
seemed to be so created as a refuge to the helpless and op- 
pressed.' 

Meantime Sydney Smith's circumstances were still limited ; 
;^5o a year as evening preacher to the Foundling Hospital was 
esteemed as a great help by him. The writer of this memoir 
remembers an amusing anecdote related of him at the table of 
an eminent literary character by a member of Lord Wood- 
houselee's family, who had been desirous to obtain for Sydney 
the patronage of the godly. To this end she persuaded Robert 
Grant and Charles Grant (afterwards Lord Glenelg) to go to the 
Foundling to hear him, she hoped to advantage ; to her ton- 
stemation he broke forth into so familiar a strain, couched in 
ternis so bordering on the jocose, — though no one had deeper 
religious convictions than he had, — that the two saintly brothers 
listened in disgust. They forgot how South let loose the powers 
of his wit and sarcasm; and how the lofty-minded Jeremy 



4/2 Sydney's ' Grammar of Life^ 

Taylor applied the force of humour to lighten the prolixity of 
argument. Sydney Smith became, nevertheless, a most popular 
preacher ; but the man who prevents people from sleeping once 
a week in their pews is sure to be criticised. 

Let us turn to him, however, as a member of society. His 
circle of acquaintance was enlarged, not only by his visits to 
Holland House, but by his lectures on moral philosophy at the 
Royal Institution. Sir Robert Peel, not the most impression- 
able of men, but one whose cold shake of the hand is said — 
as Sydney Smith said of Sir James Mackintosh — ' to have come 
under the genus Mortmain^ was a very young man at the time 
when Albemarle Street was crowded with carriages from one 
end of the street to the other, in consequence of Sydney Smith's 
lectures ; yet he declared that he had never forgotten the effect 
given to the speech of Logan, the Indian chief, by Sydney's 
voice and manner. 

His lectures produced a sum sufficient for Sydney to furnish 
a house in Orchard Street. Doughty Street — raised to celebrity 
as having been the residence, not only of Sydney Smith, but of 
Charles Dickens — was too far for the habitue of Holland House 
and the orator of Albemarle Street long to sojourn there. In 
Orchard Street, Sydney enjoyed that domestic comfort which he 
called ^ the grammar of life ;' delightful suppers, to about twenty 
or thirty persons, who came and went as they pleased. A great 
part of the same amusing and gifted set used to meet once a 
week also at Sir James Mackintosh's, at a supper, which, though 
not exactly Cowper's ^ radish and an Qgg,^ was simple, but plen- 
tiful — yet most eagerly sought after. ' There are a few living,' 
writes Sydney Smith's daughter, ' who can look back to them, 
and I have always found them do so with a sigh of regret.' 

One night, a country cousin of Sydney Smith's was present 
at a supper. ' Now, Sydney,' whispered the simple girl, * I 
know all these are very remarkable people ; do tell me who 
they are.' — ' Oh, yes ; there's Hannibal,' pointing to a grave, dry, 
stern man, Mr. Whishaw ; * he lost his leg in the Carthagenian 
war : there's Socrates,' pointing to Luttrell : ' that,' he added, 
turning to Horner, ' is Solon.' 

Another evening, Mackintosh brought a raw Scotch cousin — 



The Picture Mania, 473 

an ensign in a Highland regiment — with him. The young 
man's head could carry no idea of glory except in regimentals. 
Suddenly, nudging Sir James, he whispered, ' Is that the great 
Sir Sydney Smith ?' — ' Yes, yes,' answered Sir James ; and in- 
stantly telling Sydney who he was supposed to be, the grave 
evening preacher at the Foundling immediately assumed the 
character ascribed to him, and acted the hero of Acre to per- 
fection, fighting his battles over again — even charging the Turks 
— whilst the young Spt was so enchanted by the great Sir Syd- 
ney's condescension, that he wanted to fetch the pipers of his 
regiment, and pipe to the great Sir Sydney, who had never en- 
joyed the agonizing strains of the bagpipe. Upon this the party 
broke up, and Sir James carried the Highlander off, lest he 
should find out his mistake, and cut his throat from shame and 
vexation. One may readily conceive Sydney Smith's enjoying 
this joke, for his spirits were those of a boy : his gaiety was 
irresistible ; his ringing laugh, infectious ; but it is difficult for 
those who knew Mackintosh in his later years — the quiet, almost 
pensive invalid — to realize in that remembrance any trace of 
the Mackintosh of Doughty Street and Orchard Street days. 

One day Sydney Smith came home with two hackney coaches 
full of pictures, which he had picked up at an auction. His 
daughter thus tells the story : ' Another day he came home with 
two hackney-coach loads of pictures, which he had met with at 
an auction, having found it impossible to resist so many yards 
of bro\vn-looking figures and faded landscapes going for " abso- 
lutely nothing, unheard of sacrifices." " Kate" hardly knew 
whether to laugh or cry when she saw these horribly dingy-look- 
ing objects enter her pretty little drawing-room, and looked at 
him as if she thought him half mad ; and half mad he was, but 
with delight at his purchase. He kept walking up and down 
the room, waving his arms, putting them in fresh lights, declar- 
ing they were exquisite specimens of art, and if not by the very 
best masters, merited to be so. He invited his friends, and dis- 
played his pictures; discovered fresh beauties for each new 
comer ; and for three or four days, under the magic influence 
of his wit and imagination, these gloomy old pictures were a 
perpetual source of amusement and fun.' 



474 A Living comes at Last 

At last, finding that he was considered no authority for the 
fine arts, off went the pictures to another auction, but all re- 
christened by himself, with unheard-of names. * One, I re- 
member,' says Lady Holland, ' was a beautiful landscape, by 
Nicholas de Falda, a pupil of Valdezzio, the only painting by 
that eminent artist. The pictures sold, I believe, for rather less 
than he gave for them under their original names, which were 
probably as real as their assumed ones.' 

Sydney Smith had long been styled by his friends the ^Bishop 
of Mickleham,' in allusion to his visits to, and influence in, the 
house of his friend, Richard Sharp, who had a cottage at that 
place. A piece of real preferment was now his. This was the 
living of Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire, given him by Lord 
Erskine, then Chancellor. Lady Holland never rested till she 
had prevailed on Erskine to give Sydney Smith a living. Smith, 
as Rogers relates, went to thank his lordship. ^ Oh,' said 
Erskine, ' don't thank me, Mr. Smith ; I gave you the living 
because Lady Holland insisted on my doing so ; and if she had 
desired me to give it to the devil, he must have had it.' 

Notwithstanding the prediction of the saints, Sydney Smith 
proved an excellent parish priest. Even his most admiring 
friends did not expect this result. The general impression was, 
that he was infinitely better fitted for the bar than for the church. 
^ Ah ! Mr. Smith,' Lord Stowell used to say to him, ^ you would 
be in a far better situation, and a far richer man, had you be- 
longed to us.' 

OnQjeu d' esprit more, and Smith hastened to take possession 
of his living, and to enter upon duties of which no one better 
knew the mighty importance than he did. 

Among the Mackintosh set was Richard Sharp, to whom we 
have already referred, termed, from his great knowledge and 
ready memory, * Conversation Sharp.' Many people may think 
that this did not imply an agreeable man, and they were, per- 
haps, right. Sharp was a plain, ungainly man. One evening, 
a literary lady, now living, being at Sir James Mackintosh's, in 
company with Sharp, Sismondi, and the late Lord Denman, 
then a man of middle age. Sir James was not only particularly 
partial to Denman, but admired him personally. ^ Do you not 



The Wit's Ministry, 475 

think Denman handsome ?' he inquired of the lady after the 
guests were gone. ^ No ? Then you must think Mr. Sharp 
handsome/ he rejoined; meaning that a taste so perverted as 
not to admire Denman must be smitten with Sharp. Sharp is 
said to have studied all the morning before he went out to 
dinner, to get up his wit and anecdote, as an actor does his 
part. Sydney Smith having one day received an invitation 
from him to dine at Fishmongers' Hall, sent the following 
reply : — 

* Much do I love 

The monsters of the deep to eat ; 
To see the rosy salmon lying, 
By smelts encircled, born for frying ; 
And from the china boat to pour 
On flaky cod the flavoured shower. 
Thee above all, I much regard, 
Flatter than Longman's flattest bard, 
Much-honour'd turbot ! sore I grieve 
Thee and thy dainty friends to leave. 
Far from ye all, in snuggest corner, 
I go to dine with little Horner ; 
He who with philosophic eye 
Sat brooding o'er his Christmas pie ; 
Then firm resolved, with either thumb, 
Tore forth the crust-enveloped plum ; 
And mad with youthful dreams of deathless fame, 
Proclaimed the deathless glories of his name.' 

One word before we enter on the subject of Sydney Smith's 
ministry. In this biography of a great Wit, we touch but 
lightly upon the graver features of his character, yet they cannot 
wholly be passed over. Stanch in his devotion to the Church 
of England, he was liberal to others. The world in the pre- 
sent day is afraid of liberality. Let it not be forgotten that 
it has been the fanatic and the intolerant, not the mild and 
practical, among us who have gone from the Protestant to 
the Romish faith. Sydney Smith, in common with other 
great men, had no predilection for dealing damnation round 
the land. How noble, how true, are Mackintosh's reflec- 
tions on religious sects ! ^ It is impossible, I think, to look 
into the interior of any religious sect, without thinking better 
of it. I ought, indeed, to confine myself to those of Chris- 
tian Europe, but with that limitation it seems to me the 
remark is true \ whether I look at the Jansenists of Port 



47^ The Parsonage House at Foston-le-Clay, 

Royal, or the Quakers in Clarkson, or the Methodists in 
these journals. All these sects, which appear dangerous or 
ridiculous at a distance, assume a much more amicable 
character on nearer inspection. They all inculcate pure virtue, 
and practise mutual kindness; and they exert great force of 
reason in rescuing their doctrines from the absurd or pernicious 
consequences which naturally flow from them. Much of this 
arises from the general nature of religious principle — much also 
from the genius of the Gospel.' 

Nothing could present a greater contrast with the comforts 
of Orchard Street than the place on which Sydney Smith's 
Mines' had now 'fallen.' Owing to the non-residence of the' 
clergy, one-third of the parsonage-houses in England had 
fallen into decay, but that of Foston-le-Clay was pre-eminently 
wretched. A hovel represented what was still called the 
parsonage-house : it stood on a glebe of three hundred acres 
of the stiffest clay in Yorkshire : a brick-floored kitchen, 
with a room above it, both in a ruinous condition was 
the residence which, for a hundred and fifty years, had never 
been inhabited by an incumbent. It will not be a matter 
of surprise that for some time, until 1808, Sydney Smith, 
with the permission of the Archbishop of York, continued 
to reside in London, after having appointed a curate at 
Foston-le-Clay. 

The first visit to his living was by no means promising. 
Picture to yourself, my reader, Sydney Smith in a carriage, 
in his superfine black coat, driving into the remote village, 
and parleying with the old parish clerk, who after some con- 
versation, observed, emphatically, shaking his stick on the 
ground, ^Master Smith, it stroikes me that people as comes 
froe London is such/^^A.' — ^ I see you are no fool,' was the 
prompt answer ; and the parson and the clerk parted mutually 
satisfied. 

The profits, arising from the sale of two volumes of ser- 
mons, carried Sydney Smith, his family, and his furniture, to 
Foston-le-Clay in the summer of 1809, and he took up his 
abode in a pleasant house about two miles from York, at 
Heslington. 







hVDNEY smith's WITTY ANSWER TO TUE Oil) PAKISU CLERK. 



• aSV<? p. 47(5 



Country Quiet. 477 

Let us now, for a time, forget the wit, the editor of the 
'Edinburgh Review,' the diner out, the evening preacher at 
the Foundhng, and glance at the peaceful and useful life of 
a country clergyman. His spirits, his wit, all his social 
qualities, never deserted Sydney Smith, even in the retreat 
to which he was destined. Let us see him driving in his 
second-hand carriage, his horse, ' Peter the Cruel,' with Mrs. 
Smith by his side, summer and winter, from Heslington to 
Foston-le-Clay. Mrs. Smith, at first, trembled at the in- 
experience of her charioteer; but ^ she soon,' said Sydney, 
'raised my wages, and considered me an excellent Jehu.' 
' Mr. Brown,' said Sydney to one of the tradesmen of York, 
through the streets of which he found it difficult to drive, 
' your streets are the narrowest in Europe.' — ' Narrow, sir ? 
there's plenty of room for two carriages to pass each other, and 
an inch and a half to spare !' 

Let us see him in his busy peaceful life, digging an hour or 
two every day in his garden to avoid sudden death, by pre- 
venting corpulency; then galloping through a book, and 
when his family laughed at him for so soon dismissing a 
quarto, saying, ' Cross-examine me, then,' and going well 
through the ordeal. Hear him, after finishing his morning's 
writing, saying to his wife, ' There, Kate, it's done : do look 
over it ; put the dots to the i's, and cross the t's :' and off he 
went to his walk, surrounded by his children, who were his 
companions and confidants. See him in the lane, talking to 
an old woman whom he had taken into his gig as she was 
returning from market, and picking up all sorts of knowledge 
from her ; or administering medicine to the poor, or to his 
horses and animals, sometimes committing mistakes next to 
fatal. One day he declared he found all his pigs intoxicated, 
grunting ' God save the King ' about the sty. He nearly 
poisoned his red cow by an over-dose of castor-oil ; and Peter 
the Cruel, so called because the groom once said he had a 
cruel face, took two boxes of opium pills (boxes and all) in his 
mash, without ill consequences. 

See him, too, rushing out after dinner — for he had a horror 
of long sittings after that meal — to look at his * scratchen' 



478 The Universal Scratcker, 

He used to say, Lady Holland (his daughter) relates, ^ I am 
all for cheap luxuries, even for animals; now all animals 
have a passion for scratching their backbones ; they break 
down your gates and palings to effect this. Look ! there is 
my universal scratcher, a sharp-edged pole, resting on a high 
and a low post, adapted to every height, from a horse to a 
lamb. Even the Edinburgh Reviewer can take his turn : you 
have no idea how popular it is ; I have not had a gate broken 
since I put it up ; I have it in all my fields.' 

Then his experiments were numerous. Mutton fat was 
to be burned instead of candles ; and working-people were 
brought in and fed with broth, or with rice, or with porridge, 
to see which was the most satisfying diet. Economy was 
made amusing, benevolence almost absurd, but the humorous 
man, the kind man, shone forth in all things. He was one of 
the first, if not the first, who introduced allotment-gardens 
for the poor : he was one who could truly say at the last, 
when he had lived sixty-six years, *I have done but 
very little harm in the world, and I have brought up my 
family.' 

We have taken a glimpse — and a glimpse merely — of the 
^wise Wif in London, among congenial society, where every 
intellectual power was daily called forth in combative force. 
See him nov/ in the provincial circles of the remote county 
of York. ' Did you ever/ he once asked, ' dine out in 
the country? What misery do human beings inflict on 
each other under the name of pleasure 1' Then he de- 
scribes driving in a broiling sun through a dusty road, to 
eat a haunch of venison at the house of a neighbouring 
parson. Assembled in a small house, ^redolent of frying,' 
talked of roads, weather, and turnips ; began, that done, 
to be hungry. A stripling, caught up for the occasion, 
calls the master of the house out of the room, and announces 
that the cook has mistaken the soup for dirty water, and 
has thrown it away. No help for it— agreed ; they must 
do without it; perhaps as well they should. Dinner an- 
nounced ; they enter the dining-room : heavens 1 what a gale 1 
the venison is high 1 



Country Life mid Coimtry Pfejtcdice. 479 

Various other adverse incidents occur, and the party return 
home, grateful to the post-boys for not being drunk, and 
thankful to Providence for not being thrown into a wet 
ditch. 

In addition to these troubles and risks, there was an enemy 
at hand to apprehend — prejudice. The Squire of Heslington 
— ' the last of the Squires' — regarded Mr. Smith as a Jacobin j 
and his lady, ^ who looked as if she had walked straight out 
of the Ark, or had been the wife of Enoch,' used to turn aside 
as he passed. When, however, the squire found ' the peace of 
the village undisturbed, harvests as usual, his dogs uninjured, 
he first bowed, then called, and ended by a pitch of con- 
fidence ;' actually discovered that Sydney Smith had made a 
joke; nearly went into convulsions of laughter, and finished by 
inviting the * dangerous fellow,' as he had once thought him, 
to see his dogs. 

In 1 8 13 Sydney Smith removed, as he thought it his duty 
to do, to Foston-le-Clay, and, ^not knowing a turnip from a 
carrot,' began to farm three hundred acres, and not having any 
money, to build a parsonage-house. 

It was a model parsonage, he thought, the plan being 
formed by himself and ' Kate.' Being advised by his neigh- 
bours to purchase oxen, he bought (and christened) four oxen, 
' Tug and Lug,' ' Crawl and Haul.' But Tug and Lug took 
to fainting. Haul and Crawl to lie down in the mud, so he 
was compelled to sell them, and to purchase a team of 
horses. 

The house plunged him into debt for twenty years ; and 
a man-servant being too expensive, the ' wise Wit' caught 
up a country girl, made like a mile-stone, and christened 
her ^ Bunch,' and Bunch became the best butler in the 
county. 

He next set up a carriage, which he christened the ' Im- 
mortal,' for it grew, from being only an ancient green 
chariot, supposed to have been the earliest invention of the 
kind, to be known by all the neighbours; the village dogs 
barked at it, the village boys cheered it, and * we had no false 
shame.' 



480 " The Genial Magistrate, 

One could linger over the annals of Sydney Smith's useful, 
happy life at Foston-le-Clay, visited there indeed by Mack- 
intosh, and each day achieving a higher and higher reputa- 
tion in literature. We see him as a magistrate, ' no friend 
to game,' as a country squire in Suffolk solemnly said of a 
neighbour, but a friend to man ; with a pitying heart, that 
forbade him to commit young delinquents to gaol, though he 
would lecture them severely, and call out, in bad cases, ^ John, 
bring me out m^ private gallows^ which brought the poor boys 
on their knees. We behold him making visits, and even tours, 
in the ^Immortal,' and receiving Lord and Lady Carlisle in 
their coach and four, which had stuck in the middle of a 
ploughed field, there being scarcely any road, only a lane up 
to the house. Behold him receiving his poor friend, Francis 
Horner, who came to take his last leave of him, and died at 
Pisa, in 181 7, after earning honours, paid, as Sir James 
Mackintosh remarked, to intrinsic claims alone — ^a man of 
obscure birth, who never filled an office.' See Sydney Smith, 
in 181 6, from the failure of the harvest (he who was in 
London ' a walking patty '), sitting down with his family to 
repast without bread, thin, unleavened cakes being the sub- 
stitute. See his cheerfulness, his submission to many priva- 
tions : picture him to ourselves trying to ride, but falling off 
incessantly ; but obliged to leave off riding ' for the good of 
his family, and the peace of his parish' (he had christened his 
horse, ^Calamity'). See him suddenly prostrate from that 
steed in the midst of the streets of York, 'to the great joy of 
Dissenters,' he declares : another time flung as if he had been 
a shuttlecock, into a neighbouring parish, very glad that 
it was not a neighbouring planet, for somehow or other his 
horse and he had a ' trick of parting company.' ' I used,' he 
wrote, 'to think a fall from a horse dangerous, but .much ex- 
perience has convinced me to the contrary. I have had six 
falls in two years, and just behaved like the Three per Cents., 
when they fell — I got up again, and am not a bit the worse for 
it, any more than the stock in question.' 

His country life was varied by many visits. In 1820 he 
went to visit Lord Grey, then to Edinburgh, to Jeffrey. 



Glimpse of Edinburgh Society. 481 

Travelling by the coach, a gentleman, with whom he had been 
talking, said, * There is a very clever fellow lives near here, 
Sydney Smith, I believe ; a devilish odd fellow.' — ^ He may be 
an odd fellow,' cried Sydney, taking off his hat, * but here he is, 
odd as he is, at your service.' 

Sydney Smith found great changes in Edinburgh — changes, 
however, in many respects for the better. The society of 
Edinburgh was then in its greatest perfection. * Its brilliancy, 
Lord Cockburn remarks, * was owing to a variety of peculiar 
circumstances, whicJi only operated during this period. The 
principal of these were the survivance of several of the 
eminent men of the preceding age, and of curious old habits, 
which the modern flood had not yet obliterated; the rise 
of a powerful community of young m.en of ability; the 
exclusion of the British from the Continent, which made 
this place, both for education and for residence, a favourite 
resort of strangers ; the war, which maintained a constant 
excitement of military preparation and of military idleness : 
the blaze of that popular literature which made this the 
second city in the empire for learning and science ; and 
the extent and the ease with which literature and society 
embellished each other, without rivalry, and without pedantiy. 

Among the ' best young ' as his lordship styles them, were 
Lord Webb Seymour and Francis Horner; whilst those of 
the * interesting old ' most noted were Elizabeth Hamilton 
and Mrs. Grant of Laggan, who had ' unfolded herself,' to 
borrow Lord Cockburn's words, in the ^Letters from the 
Mountains,' ^ an interesting treasury of good solitary thoughts.' 
Of these two ladies. Lord Cockburn says, *They were ex- 
cellent women, and not too blue. Their sense covered the 
colour.' It was to Mrs. Hamilton that Jeffrey said, ^ That 
there was no objection to the blue stocking, provided the 
petticoat came low enough to cover it.' Neither of these 
ladies possessed personal attractions. Mrs. Hamilton had 
the plain face proper to literary women ; Mrs. Grant was 
a tall dark woman, with much dignity of manner : in spite 
of her life of misfortune, she had a great flow of spirits. 
Beautifully, indeed, does Lord Cockburn render justice to 

31 



482 Mrs. Grant of Laggan, 

her character : ^ She was always under the influence of an 
affectionate and delightful enthusiasm, which, unquenched by 
time and sorrow, survived the wreck of many domestic 
attachments, and shed a glow over the close of a very pro- 
tracted life.' 

Both she and Mrs. Hamilton succeeded in drawing to their 
conversazioni, in small rooms of unpretending style, men of 
the highest order, as well as attractive women of intelligence. 
Society in Edinburgh took the form of Parisian soirees, and 
although much divided into parties, was sufficiently general to 
be varied. It is amusing to find that Mrs. Grant was at one 
time one of the supposed * Authors of " Waverley,'" until the 
disclosure of the mystery silenced reports. It was the popu- 
larity of ^ Marmion,' that made Scott, as he himself confesses, 
nearly lose his footing. Mrs. Grant's observation on him, 
after meeting the Great Unknown at some brilliant party, has 
been allowed, even by the sarcastic Lockhart, to be ^ witty 
enough.' ' Mr. Scott always seems to me to be like a glass, 
through which the rays of admiration pass without sensibly 
affecting it ; but the bit of paper^ that lies beside it will pre- 
sently be in a blaze — and no wonder.' 

Scott endeavoured to secure Mrs. Grant a pension ; merited 
as he observes, by her as an authoress, ^ but much more,' in 
his opinion, * by the firmness and elasticity of mind with which 
she had borne a great succession of domestic calamities.' 
'Unhappily,' he adds, 'there was only about ;^ioo open on 
the Pension List, and this the minister assigned in equal - por- 
tions to Mrs. G — and a distressed lady, grand-daughter of a 
forfeited Scottish nobleman. Mrs. G — , proud as a High- 
landwoman, vain as a poetess, and absurd as a blue-stocking, 
has taken this partition in mdlam partem, and written to Lord 
Melville about her merits, and that her friends do not con- 
sider her claims as being fairly canvassed, with something 
like a demand that her petition be submitted to the king. 
This is not the way to make htx plack a bawbee, and Lord 
M — , a little miffed in turn, sends the whole correspondence 
to me to know whether Mrs. G — will accept the ;^5o or not. 

* Alluding to Lady Scott, 



Jeffry and Cockburn, 483 

Now, hating to deal with ladies when they are in an unrea- 
sonable humour, I have got the good-humoured Man of 
Feeling to find out the lady's mind, and I take on myself the 
task of making her peace with Lord M — . After all, the poor 
lady is greatly to be pitied : — her sole remaining daughter deep 
and far gone in a decline.' 

The Man of Feeling proved successful, and reported soon 
aftenvards that the ^ dirty pudding ' was eaten by the almost 
destitute authoress. Scott's tone in the letters which refer to 
this subject does little credit to his good taste and delicacy of 
feeling, which were really attributable to his character. 

Very few notices occur of any intercourse between Scott 
and Sydney Smith in Lockhart's ' Life.' It was not, indeed, 
until 1827 that Scott could be sufficiently cooled down from 
the ferment of politics which had been going on to meet 
Jeffrey and Cockburn. When he dined, however, with 
Murray, then Lord Advocate, and met Jeffrey, Cockburn, the 
late Lord Rutherford, then Mr. Rutherford, and others of 
* that file,' he pronounced the party to be ^ very pleasant, 
cnpital good cheer, and excellent wine, much laugh and fun. 
I do not know,' he writes, ' how it is, but when I am out with 
a party of my Opposition friends, the day is often merrier than 
when with our own set. It is because they are cleverer ? Jeffery 
and Harry Cockburn are, to be sure, very extraordinary 
men, yet it is not owing to that entirely. I believe both parties 
meet with the feeling of something like novelty. We have not 
worn out our jests in daily contact. There is also a disposition 
on such occasions to be courteous, and of course to be 
pleased.' 

On his side, Cockburn did ample justice to the * genius 
who,' to use his own words, 'has immortalized Edinburgh 
and delighted the world.' Mrs. Scott could not, however, 
recover the smarting inflicted by the critiques of Jeffrey on 
her husband's works. Her — ' And I hope, Mr. Jeffrey, Mr. 
Constable paid you well for your Article' (Jeffrey dining 
with her that day), had a depth of simple satire in it that even 
an Edinburgh Reviewer could hardly exceed. It was, one 

31—2 



484 Craigcrook, 

must add, impertinent and in bad taste. ' You are very good 
at cutting up.' 

Sydney Smith found Jeffrey and Cockbum rising barristers. 
Horner, on leaving Edinburgh, had left to Jeffrey his bar 
wig, and the bequest had been lucky. Jeffrey was settled at 
Craigcrook, a lovely English-looking spot, with wooded slopes 
and green glades, near Edinburgh ; and Cockburn had, since 
181 1, set up his rural gods at Bonally, near Colinton, just 
under the Pentland Hills, and he wrote, ' Unless some aveng- 
ing angel shall expel me, I shall never leave that paradise.' 
And a paradise it was. Beneath those rough, bare hills, 
broken here and there by a trickling bum, like a silver thread 
on the brown sward, stands a Norman tower, the addition, by 
Playfair's skill, to what was once a scarcely habitable farm- 
house. That tower contained Lord Cockbum's fine library, 
also his ordinary sitting-rooms. There he read and wrote, and 
received such society as will never meet again, there or else- 
where — amongst them Sydney Smith. Beneath — around the 
tower — stretches a delicious garden, composed of terraces, 
and laurel-hedged walks, and beds of flowers, that bloomed 
freely in that sheltered spot. A bowling-green, shaded by one 
of the few trees near the house, a sycamore, was the care of 
many an hour; for to make the turf velvety, the sods were 
fetched from the hills above — from ^ yon hills,' as Lord Cock- 
burn would have called them. And this was for many years 
one of the rallying points of the best Scottish society, and, 
as each autumn came round, of what the host called his 
Carnival. Friends were summoned from the north and the 
south — ' death no apology.' High jinks within doors, excur- 
sions without. Every Edinburgh man reveres the spot, 
hallowed by the remembrance of Lord Cockburn. ^ Every 
thing except the two burns, he wrote, ^the few old trees, 
and the mountains, are my own work. Human nature is 
incapable of enjoying more happiness than has been my lot 
here. I have been too happy, and often tremble in the 
anticipation that the cloud must come at last.' And come it 
did ; but found him not unprepared, although the burden 
that he had to bear in after-life was heavy. In their enlarged 



Sydney SmitJis Cheer fulness. 485 

and philosophic minds, in their rapid transition from sense to 
nonsense, there was an affinity in the characters of Sydney 
Smith and of Lord Cockburn which was not carried out in 
any other point. Smith's conversation was wit — Lord Cock- 
burn's was eloquence. 

From the festivities of Edinburgh Sydney Smith returned 
contentedly to Foston-le-Clay, and to Bunch. Amongst other 
gifted visitors was Mrs. Marcet. * Come here. Bunch,' cries 
Sydney Smith one <Jay ; ^ come and repeat your crimes to Mrs. 
Marcet.' Then Bunch, grave as a judge, began to repeat : 
* Plate-snatching, gravy-spilling, door-slamming, blue-bottle-fly- 
catching, and curtsey-bobbing.' ^ Blue -bottle-fly-catching,' 
means standing with her mouth open, and not attending ; and 
' curtsey-bobbing ' was curtseying to the centre of the earth. 

One night, in the winter, during a tremendous snow-storm, 
Bunch rushed in, exclaiming, ' Lord and Lady Mackincrush is 
com'd in a coach and four.' The lord and lady proved to be 
Sir James and his daughter, who had arrived to stay with his 
friends in the remote parsonage of Foston-le-Clay a few days, 
and had sent a letter, which arrived the day afterwards to an- 
nounce their visit. Their stay began with a blunder ; and when 
Sir James departed, leaving kind feelings behind him — books, 
his hat, his gloves, his papers and other articles of apparel were 
found also. ^ What a man that would be,' said Sydney Smith, 
' had he one particle of gall, or the least knowledge of the 
value of red tape 1' It was true that the indolent, desultory 
character of Mackintosh interfered perpetually with his progress 
in the world. He loved far better to lie on, the sofa reading a 
novel than to attend a Privy Council ; the slightest indisposi- 
tion was made on his part a plea for avoiding the most import- 
ant business. 

Sydney Smith had said that * when a clever man takes to cul- 
tivating turnips and retiring, it is generally an imposture ;' but 
in him the retirement was no imposture. His wisdom shone 
forth daily in small and great matters. 'Life,' he justly thought, 
Svas to be fortified by many friendships,' and he acted up to 
his principles, and kept up friendships by letters. Cheerfulness 
he thought might be cultivated by making the rooms one lives 



486 His Rheumatic Armour. 

in as comfortable as possible. His own drawing-room was 
papered on this principle, with a yellow flowering pattern ; and 
filled with ' irregular regularities ;' his fires were blown into 
brightness by Shadrachs^ as he called them — tubes fiirnished 
with air opening in the centre of each fire. His library con- 
tained his rheumatic armour : for he tried heat and compres- 
sion in rheumatism ; put his legs into narrow buckets, which 
he called his jack-boots ; wore round his throat a tin collar ; 
over each shoulder he had a large tin thing like a shoulder of 
mutton ; and on his head he displayed a hollow helmet filled 
with hot water. In the middle of a field into which his win- 
dows looked, was a skeleton sort of a machine, his Universal 
Scratcher ; with which every animal from a lamb to a bullock 
could scratch itself Then on the Sunday the Immortal was 
called into use, to travel in state to a church like a barn ; about 
fifty people in it ; but the most original idea was farming through 
the medium of a tremendous speaking-trumpet from his own 
door, with its companion, a telescope, to see what his people 
are about ! On the 24th of January, 1828, the first notable 
piece of preferment was conferred on him by Lord Lyndhurst 
then Chancellor, and of widely difi'ering political opinions to 
Sydney Smith. This was a vacant stall in the cathedral at 
Bristol, where on the ensuing 5th of November, the new canon 
gave the Mayor and Corporation of that Protestant city such a 
dose of ^ toleration as should last them many a year.' He went 
to Court on his appointment, and appeared in shoestrings in-* 
stead of buckles. ' I found, ' he relates, ' to my surprise, people 
looking down at my feet : I could not think what they were at. 
At first I thought they had discovered the beauty of my legs ; 
but at last the truth burst on me, by some wag laughing and 
thinking I had done it as a good joke. I was, of course, ex- 
ceedingly annoyed to have been supposed capable of such a 
vulgar unmeaning piece of disrespect, and kept my feet as 
coyly under my petticoats as the veriest prude in the country 
till I should make my escape.' His circumstances were now 
improved, and though moralists, he said, thought property an 
evil, he declared himself happier every guinea he gained. He 
thanked God for his animal spirits, which received, unhappily, 



No Bishopric. 487 

in 1829, a terrible shock from the death of his eldest son, 
Douglas, aged twenty-four. This was the great misfortune of his 
life ; the young man was promising, talented, affectionate. He 
exchanged Foston le-Clay at this time for a living in Somer- 
setshire, of a beautiful and characteristic name — Combe Florey. 

Combe Florey seems to have been an earthly paradise, seated 
in one of those delicious hollows or in Combes, for which that 
part of the west of England is celebrated. His withdrawal 
from the Edinburgh Review — Mackintosh's death — the mar- 
riage of his eldest daughter, Saba, to Dr. Holland (now Sir 
Henry Holland) — the termination of Lord Grey's Administra- 
tion, which ended Sydney's hopes of being a bishop, were the 
leading events of his life for the next few years. 

It appears that Sydney Smith felt to the hour of his death 
pained that those by whose side he had fought for fifty years, 
in their adversity, the Whig party, should never have offered 
what he declared he should have rejected, a bishopric, when 
they were constantly bestowing such promotions on persons of 
mediocre talent and claims. Waiving the point, whether it is 
right or wrong to make men bishoj)S because they have been 
political partizans, the cause of this alleged injustice may be 
found in the tone of the times, which was eminently tinctured 
with cant. The Clapham sect were in the ascendancy ; and 
Ministers scarcely dared to offend so influential a body. Even 
the gentle Sir James Mackintosh refers, in his Journal, with 
disgust to the phraseology of the day : — 

* They have introduced a new language, in which they never 
say that A. B. is good, or virtuous, or even religious ; but that 
he is an " advanced Christian." Dear Mr. Wilberforce is an 
" advanced Christian." Mrs. C. has lost three children without 
a pang, and is so " advanced a Christian " that she could see 
the remaining twenty, ''• with poor dear Mr. C," removed with 
perfect tranquillity.' 

Such was the disgust expressed towards that school by Mack- 
intosh, whose last days were described by his daughter as 
having been passed in silence and thought, with his Bible be- 
fore him, breaking that silence — and portentous silence-^to 
speak of God, and of his Maker's disposition towards man. 



488 Becomes Canon of St. Paul's, 

His mind ceased to be occupied with speculations ; politics in- 
terested him no more. His own ' personal relationship to his 
Creator ' was the subject of his thoughts. Yet Mackintosh was 
not by any means considered as an advanced Christian, or even 
as a Christian at all by the zealots of his time. 

Sydney Smith's notions of a bishop were certainly by no 
means carried out in his own person and character. 'I never 
remember in my time/ he said, ^ a real bishop : a grave, elderly 
man, full of Greek, with sound views of the middle voice and 
preterpluperfect tense ; gentle and kind to his poor clergy, of 
powerful and commanding eloquence in Parliament, never to 
be put down when the great interests of mankind were con- 
cerned, leaning to the Government when it was right, leaning 
to the people when they were right ; feeling that if the Spirit 
of God had called him to that high office, he was called for 
no mean purpose, but rather that seeing clearly, acting boldly, 
and intending purely, he might confer lasting benefit upon man- 
kind.' 

In 1 83 1 Lord Grey appointed Sydney Smith a Canon Resi- 
dentiary of St. Paul's ; but still the mitre was withheld, although 
it has since appeared that Lord Grey had destined him for one 
of the first vacancies in England. 

Henceforth his residence at St. Paul's brought him still more 
continually into the world, which he delighted by his ^wise wit' 
Most London dinners, he declared, evaporated in whispers to 
one's next neighbours. He never, however, spoke to his neigh- 
bour, but ^ fired ' across the table. One day, however, he broke 
his rule, on hearing a lady, who sat next him, say in a sweet 
low voice, ^No gravy, sir.' — * Madam !' he cried, ^ I have all my 
life been looking for a person who disliked gravy, let us swear 
immortal friendship.' She looked astonished, but took the 
oath, and kept it. ^ What better foundation for friendship,' he 
asks, * than similarity of tastes ?' 

He gave an evening party once a week ; when a profusion 
of wax-lights was his passion. He loved to see young people 
decked with natural flowers ; he was, in fact, a blameless and 
benevolent Epicurean in everything; great indeed was the 
change from his former residence at Foston, which he used to 



Anecdotes of Lord Dudley, 489 

say was twelve miles from a lemon. Charming as his parties at 
home must have been, they wanted the bon-hovimie and simpli- 
city of former days, and of the homely suppers in Orchard Street. 
Lord Dudley, Rogers, Moore, ' Young Macaulay,' as he was 
called for many years, formed now his society. Lord Dudley 
was then in the state which afterwards became insanity, and 
darkened completely a mind sad and peculiar from childhood. 
Bankes, in his ' Journal,' relates an anecdote of him about this 
time, when, as he.^ays, ' Dudley's mind was on the wane ; but 
still his caustic humour would find vent through the cloud which 
was gradually over-shadowing his masterly intellect.' He was 
one day sitting in his room soliloquizing aloud ; his favourite 
Newfoundland-dog was at his side, and seemed to engross all 
his attention. A gentleman was present who was good-looking 
and good-natured, but not overburthened with sense. Lord 
Dudley at last, patting his dog's head, said, ^Fido mio, they say 

dogs have no souls. Humph, and still they say ' (naming 

the gentleman present) ^has a soul !' One day Lord Dudley 
met Mr. Allen, Lord Holland's librarian, and asked him to dine 
with him. Allen went. When asked to describe his dinner, he 
said, ' There was no one there. Lord Dudley talked a little to 
his servant, and a great deal to his dog, but said not one word 
to me.' 

Innumerable are the witticisms related of Sydney Smith, 
when seated at a dinner table — having swallowed in life what 
he called a * Caspian Sea' of soup. Talking one day of Sir 
Charles Lyell's book, the subject of which was the phenomena 
which the earth might, at some future period, present to the 
geologists. * Let us imagine,' he said, ^ an excavation on the 
site of St. Paul's ; fancy a lecture by the Owen of his future 
era on the thigh-bone of a minor canon, or the tooth of a 
dean : the form, qualities, and tastes he would discover from 
them.' * It is a great proof of shyness,' he said, ^ to cnmible 
your bread at dinner. Ah ! I see,' he said, turning to a young 
lady, * you're afraid of me : you crumble your bread. I do it 
when I sit by the Bishop of London, and with both hands when 
I sit by the Archbishop.' 

He gave a capital reproof to a lively young M.P. who was 



490 A Sharp Reproof. 

accompanying him after dinner to one of the solemn evening 
receptions at Lambeth Palace during the life of the late 
Archbishop of Canterbury. The M.P. had been calling him 
* Smith/ though they had never met before that day. As 
the carriage stopped at the Palace, Smith turned to him and 
said, ' Now don't, my good fellow, don't call the Archbishop 
" Howley." ' 

Talking of fancy-balls — * Of course,' he said, ^ if I went to 
one, I should go as a Dissenter.' Of Macaulay, he said, ' To 
take him out of literature and science, and to put him in the 
House of Commons, is like taking the chief physician out of 
London in a pestilence.* 

Nothing amused him so much as the want of perception 
of a joke. One hot day a Mrs. Jackson called on him, and 
spoke of the oppressive state of the weather. ^ Heat ! it 
was dreadful,' said Sydney ; ^ I found I could do nothing 
for it but take off my flesh and sit in my bones.' — ^Take 
off your flesh and sit in your bones ! Oh, Mr. Smith ! how 
could you do that?' the lady cried. 'Come and see next 
time, ma'am — nothing more easy.' She went away, however, 
convinced that such a proceeding was very unorthodox. No 
wonder, with all his various acquirements, it ' should be said 
of him that no 'dull dinners were ever remembered in his 
company.' 

A happy old age concluded his life, at once brilliant and 
useful. To the last he never considered his education as 
finished. His wit, a friend said, 'was always fresh, always 
had the dew on it. He latterly got into what Lord Jeffrey 
called the vicious habit of water drinking. Wine, he said, 
destroyed his understanding. He even ' forgot the number 
of the Muses, and thought it was thirty-nine, of course.' He 
agreed with Sir James Mackintosh that he had found the 
world more good and more foolish than he had thought when 
young. He took a cheerful view of all things ; he thanked 
God for small as well as great things, even for tea. ' I 
am glad,' he used to say, ' I was not born before tea.' 
His domestic affections were strong, and were heartily reci- 
procated 



Sydney's Classification of Society, 49 1 

General society he divided into classes : ' The noodles — 
very numerous and well known. The affliction woman — a va- 
luable member of society, generally an ancient spinster in small 
circumstances, who packs up her bag and 's^tt^ off in cases of 
illness or death, "to comfort, flatter, fetch, and carry." The 
up-takers — people who see from their fingers' ends and go 
through a room touching everything. The clearers — who begin 
at a dish and go on tasting and eating till it is finished. The 
sheep-walkers — who- go on for ever on the beaten track. The 
lemon-squeezers of society — who act on you as a wet blanket ; 
see a cloud in sunshine ; the nails of the coffin in the ribbons 
of a bride ; extinguish all hope ; people, whose very look sets 
your teeth on an edge. The let-well-aloners, cousin-german to 
the noodles — yet a variety, and who ate afraid to act, and think 
it safer to stand still. Then the washerwomen — very numerous ! 
who always say, " Well, if ever I put on my best bonnet, 'tis 
sure to rain," &c. 

' Besides this there is a very large class of people always 
treading on your gouty foot, or talking in your deaf ear, or ask- 
ing you to give them something with your lame hand ,' &c. 

During the autumn of the year 1844, Sydney Smith felt the 
death-stroke approaching. * I am so weak, both in body and 
mind,' he said, * that I believe if the knife were put into my 
hand, I should not have strength enough to stick it into a 
Dissenter.' In October he became seriously ill. ' Ah ! 
Charles,' he said to General Fox (when he was being kept very 
low), ' I wish they would allow me even the wing of a roasted 
butterfly.' He dreaded sorrowful faces around him ; but con- 
fided to his old servant, Annie Kay — and to her alone — his 
sense of his danger. 

Almost the last person Sydney Smith saw was his beloved 
brother Bobus, who followed him to the grave a fortnight after 
he had been laid in the tomb. 

He lingered till the 22nd of February, 1845. His son closed 
his eyes. His last act was, bestowing on a poverty-stricken 
clergyman a living. 

He was buried at Kensal Green, where his eldest son, Doug- 
las, had been interred. 



492 



His Character. 



It has been justly and beautifully said of Sydney Smith, that 
Christianity was not a dogma with him, but a practical and most 
beneficent rule of life. 

As a clergyman, he was liberal, practical, staunch ; free from 
the latitudinarian principles of Hoadley, as from the bigotry of 
Laud. His wit was the wit of a virtuous, a decorous man ; it 
had pungency without venom \ humour without indelicacy ; and 
was copious without being tiresome. 





GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON, LORD MELCOMBE. 

A Dinner-gi^dng lordly Poet. — A Misfortune for a Man of Society. — Branden- 
burgh House. — 'The Diversions of the Morning.' — Johnson's Opinion of 
Foote. — Churchill and 'The Rosciad.' — Personal Ridicule in its Proper 
Light: — Wild Specimen of the Poet. — Walpole on Dodington's ' Diary.' — 
The best Commentary on a Man's Life. — Leicester House. — Grace Boyle. 
— Elegant Modes of passing Time. — A sad Day. — What does Dodington 
come here for? — The Veteran Wit, Beau, and PoHtician. — ' Defend us from 
our Executors and Editors.' 

j|T would have been well for Lord Melcombe's memory, 
Horace Walpole remarks, ' if his fame had been suf- 
fered to rest on the tradition of his wit, and the evi- 
dence of his poetr)-'.' And in the present day, that desirable 
result has come to pass. We remember Bubb Dodington chiefly 
as the courtier whose person, houses, and furniture were replete 
with costly ostentation, so as to provoke the satire of Foote, 
who brought him on the stage under the name of Sir Thomas 
Lofty in ' The Patron.' 

We recall him most as ^ l^Amphytrion cJiez qui on dine .•' ^ My 
Lord of Melcombe,' as Mallet says — 




' Wliose soups and sauces duly season'd, 
Whose wit well tim'd and sense well reason'd, 
Give Burgundy a brighter stain, 
And add new flavour to Champagne.' 

Who now cares much for the court intrigues which severed 
Sir Robert Walpole and Bubb Dodington ? Who now reads 
without disgust the annals of that famous quarrel between 
George II. and his son, during which each party devoutly 
wished the other dead ? Who minds whether the time-serving 
Bubb Dodington went over to Lord Bute or not? Who cares 
whether his hopes of political preferment were or were not 



494 ^ D inner 'givmg Lordly Poet 

gratified? Bubb Dodington was, in fact, the dinner-giving 
lordly poet, to whom even the saintly Young could write : — 

• You give protection, — I a worthless strain.' 

Bom in 1691, the accomplished courtier answered, till he 
had attained the age of twenty-nine, to the not very eupho- 
nious name of Bubb. Then a benevolent uncle with a large 
estate died, and left him, with his lands, the more exalted 
surname of Dodington. He sprang, however, from an ob- 
scure family, who had settled in Dorchester ; but that disad- 
vantage, which, according to Lord Brougham's famous pam- 
phlet, acts so fatally on a young man's advancement in 
English public life, was obviated, as most things are, by a great 
fortune. 

Mr. Bubb had been educated at Oxford : at the age of 
twenty-four he was elected M.P. for Winch elsea; he was soon 
afterwards named Envoy at the Court of Spain, but returned 
home after his accession of wealth to provincial honours, and 
became Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset. Nay, poets began to 
worship him, and even pronounced him to be well bom : — 

' Descended from old British sires ; 
Great Dodington to kings allied ; 
My patron then, my laurels' pride. 

It woulAbe consolatory to find that it is only Welsted who 
thus profaned the Muse by this abject flattery, were it not 
recorded that Thomson dedicated to him his ^ Summer.' The 
dedication was prompted by Lord Binning ; and ^ Summer' was 
published in 1727 when Dodington was one of the Lords of 
the Treasury, as well as Clerk of the Pells in Ireland. It 
seemed, therefore, worth while for Thomson to pen such a pas- 
sage as this : — ' Your example sir, has recommended poetry 
with the greatest grace to the example of those who are engag'd 
in the most active scenes of life ; and this, though confessedly 
the least considerable of those qualities that dignify your cha- 
racter, must be particularly pleasing to one whose only hope of 
being introduced to your regard is thro' the recommendation 
of an art in which you are a master.' Warton adding this tri- 
bute : — 



A Misfoi'tiinc for a Man of Society. 495 

* To praise a Dodington rash bard ! forbear. 
What can thy weak and ill-tun'd voice avail, 
When on that theme both Young and Thomson fail ?' 

Yet even when midway in his career, Dodington, in the famous 
political caricature called ' The Motion,' is depicted as ' the 
Spaniel,' sitting between the Duke of Argyle's legs, whilst his 
grace is driving a coach at full speed to the Treasury, with a 
sword instead of a whip in his hand, with Lord Chesterfield as 
postilion, and Lord Cobham as a footman, holding on by the 
straps : even then the servile though pompous character of this 
true man of the world was comprehended completely; and 
Bubb Dodington's characteristics never changed. 

In his political life, Dodington was so selfish, obsequious, 
and versatile as to incur universal opprobrium ; he had also 
another misfortune for a man of society, — he became fat and 
lethargic. ' My brother Ned,' Horace Walpole remarks, ^ says 
he is grown of less consequence, though more weight' And 
on another occasion, speaking of a majority in the House of 
Lords, he adds, ^ I do not count Dodington, who must now 
always be in the minority, for no majority will accept him.' 

Whilst, however, during the factious reign of George II., 
the town was declared, even by Horace to be wondrous dull ; 
operas unfrequented, plays not in fashion, and amours old 
as marriages. Bubb Dodington, with his wealth and profusion, ' 
contrived always to be in 'vogue as a host, while he was at a 
discount as a politician. Politics and literature are the high- 
roads in England to that much-craved-for distinction, an 
admittance into the great world ; and Dodington united these 
passports in his o\vn person : he was a poetaster, and wrote 
political pamphlets. The latter were published and admired : 
the poems were referred to as ^ very pretty love verses,' by 
Lord Lyttelton, and were never published — and never ought to 
have been published, it is stated. 

His boil 7nots, his sallies, his fortunes and places, and con- 
tinual dangling at court, procured Bubo, as Pope styled him, 
one pre-eminence. His dinners at Hammersmith were the 
most rccho'chcs in the metropolis. P'.very one remcm]>ers 
Brandenburgh House, when the hapless Caroline of Brunswick 



49^ Brandenhirgh House, 

held her court there, and where her brave heart, — ^burdened 
probably with some sins, as well as with endless regrets, — 
broke at last. It had been the residence of the beautiful and 
famous Margravine of Anspach, w^hose loveliness in vain 
tempts us to believe her innocent, in despite of facts. Before 
those eras — the presence of the Margravine, whose infidelities 
were almost avowed, and the abiding of the queen, whose 
errors had, at all events, verged on the very confines of guilt 
— the house was owned by Dodington. There he gave din- 
ners; there he gratified a passion for display, which was 
puerile; there he indulged in eccentricities which almost 
implied insanity; there he concocted his schemes for court 
advancement ; and there, later in life, he contributed some of 
the treasures of his wit to dramatic literature. ' The Wishes,' 
a comedy, by Bentley, was supposed to owe much of its point 
to the brilliant %vit of Dodington'^. 

At Brandenburgh House, a nobler presence than that of 
Dodington still haunted the groves and alleys, for Prince 
Rupert had once OA\Tied it. When Dodington bought it, he 
gave it — in jest, we must presume — the name of La Trappe ; 
and it was not called Brandenburgh House until the fair and 
frail Margravine came to live there. 

Its gardens were long famous ; and in the time of Doding- 
ton were the scene of revel. Thomas Bentley, the son of 
Richard Bentley, the celebrated critic, had wTitten a play 
called ^ The Wishes ;' and during the summer of 1 7 6 1 it was 
acted at Drury Lane, and met with the especial approbation 
of George III., who sent the author, through Lord Bute, a 
present of two hundred guineas as a tribute to the good senti- 
ments of the production. 

This piece, which, in spite of its moral tendency, has died 
out, whilst plays of less virtuous character have lived, was 
rehearsed in the gardens of Brandenburgh House. Bubb 
Dodington associated much with those who give fame; but 
he courted amongst them also those who could revenge 
affronts by bitter ridicule. Among the actors and literati who 
were then sometimes at Brandenburgh House were Foote 

* See Walpole's ' Royal and Noble Authors.' 



* TJte Diversions of the Morrmtg.^ 497 

and Cliurcliill j capital boon companions, but, as it proved, 
dangerous foes. 

Endowed with imagination ; with a mind enriched by 
classical and historical studies ; possessed of a brilliant wit ; 
Bubb Dodington was, nevertheless, in the sight of some men, 
ridiculous. Whilst the rehearsals of ' The Wishes ' went on, 
Foote was noting down all the peculiarities of the Lord of 
Brandenburgh House, with a view to bring them to account 
in his play of ' The Patron.' Lord Melcombe was an aristo- 
cratic Dombey : stultified by his own self-complacency, he 
dared to exhibit his peculiarities before the English Aris- 
tophanes. It was an act of imprudence, for Foote had long 
before (in 1747) opened the Httle theatre of the Haymarket 
with a sort of monologue play, ' The Diversions of the Morn- 
ing,' in which he convulsed his audience with the perfection 
of a mimicry never beheld before, and so wonderful, that even 
the persons of his models seemed to stand before the amazed 
spectators. 

These entertainments, in which the contriver was at once 
the author and performer, have been admirably revived by 
Mathews and others ; and in another line, by the lamented 
Albert Smith. The Westminster justices, furious and alarmed, 
opposed the daring performance, on which Foote changed the 
name of his piece, and called it * Mr. Foote giving Tea to his 
Friends,' himself still the sole actor, and changing with 
Proteus-like celerity from one to the other. Then came 
his ' Auction of Pictures,' and Sir Thomas de Veil, one of his 
enemies, the justices, was introduced. Orator Henley and 
Cock the auctioneer figured also ; and year after year the 
town was enchanted by that which is most gratifying to a 
polite audience, the finished exhibition of faults and follies. 
One stern voice w^as raised in reprobation, that of Samuel 
Johnson : he, at all events, had a due horror of buffoons ; but 
even he owned himself vanquished. 

* The first time I was in Foote's company was at Fitz- 
herbert's. Having no good opinion of the fellow, I was 
resolved not to be pleased : and it is very difiicult to please a 
man against his will. I went on eating my dinner pretty 

"^2 



498 Churchill 'mid ^the Rosciad? 

sullenly, affecting not to mind him ; but the dog was so very 
comical, that I was obliged to lay down my knife and fork, 
throw myself back in my chair, and fairly laugh it out. Sir, 
he was irresistible.' Consoled by Foote's misfortunes and 
ultimate complicated misery for his lessened importance, 
Bubb Dodington still reigned, however, in the hearts of some 
learned votaries. Richard Bentley, the critic, compared him 
to Lord Halifax — 

* That Halifax, my Lord, as you do yet, 
Stood forth the friend of poetry and wit, 
Sought silent merit in the secret cell. 
And Heav'n, nay even man, repaid him well. 

A more remorseless foe, however, than Foote appeared in 
the person of Charles Churchill, the wild and unclerical 
son of a poor curate of Westminster. Foote laughed Bubb 
Dodington down, but Churchill perpetuated the satire ; for 
Churchill was wholly unscrupulous, and his faults had been 
reckless and desperate. Wholly unfit for a clergyman, he 
had taken orders, obtained a curacy in Wales at ;^3o a year 
— not being able to subsist, took to keeping a cider-cellar, 
became a sort of bankrupt, and quitting Wales, succeeded to 
the curacy of his father, who had just died. Still famine 
haunted his home; Churchill took, therefore, to teaching 
young ladies to read and write, and conducted himself in the 
boarding-school where his duties lay, with wonderful pro- 
priety. He had married at seventeen; but even that step 
had not protected his morals : he fell into abject poverty. 
Lloyd, father of his friend Robert Lloyd, then second master 
of Westminster, made an arrangement with his creditors. 
Young Lloyd had published a poem called 'The Actor;' 
Churchill, in imitation, now produced 'The Rosciad,' and 
Bubb Dodington was one whose ridiculous points were salient 
in those days of personality. 'The Rosciad' had a signal 
success, which completed the ruin of its author : he became a 
man of the town, forsook the wife of his youth, and abandoned 
the clerical character. There are few sights more contemptible 
ihan that of a clergyman who has cast off his profession, or 
^'hose profession has cast him off. But Churchill's talents 



Personal Ridicule in its Proper Light. ^gg 

for a time kept him from utter destitution. Bubb Doddington 
may have been consoled by finding that he shared the fate of 
Dr. Johnson, who had spoken sHghtingly of Churchill's works, 
and who shone forth, therefore, in ^ The Ghost,' a later poem, 
as Dr. Pomposo. 

Richard Cumberland, the dramatist, drew a portrait of 
Lord Melcombe, which is said to have been taken from the 
life; but perhaps the most faithful delineation of Bubb Dod- 
ington's character was furnished by himself in his ^ Diary ;* 
in which, as it has been well observed, he ^unveiled the 
nakedness of his mind, and displayed himself as a courtly 
compound of mean compliance and political prostitution.' It 
may, in passing, be remarked, that few men figure well in 
an autobiography ; and that Cumberland himself, proclaimed 
by Dr. Johnson to be a learned, ingenious, accomplished 
gentleman,' adding, ^the want of company is an inconve- 
nience, but Mr. Cumberland is a million:' in spite of this 
eulogium, Cumberland has betrayed in his own autobiography 
unbounded vanity, worldliness, and an undue estimation of his 
own perishable fame. After all, amusing as personalities must 
always be, neither the humours of Foote, the vigorous satire of 
Churchill, nor the careful limning of Cumberland, whilst, they 
cannot be ranked among talents of the highest order, imply a 
sort of social treachery. The delicious little colloquy between 
Boswell and Johnson places low personal ridicule in its proper 
light. 

Boswell. — ^ Foote has a great deal of humour.' Johnson. 
— ' Yes, sir.' Boswell. — ^ He has a singular talent of exhibit- 
ing characters.' Johnson. — ^ Sir, it is not a talent — it is a vice ; 
it is what others abstain from. It is not comedy, which exhibits 
the character of a species — as that of a miser gathered from 
many misers — it is farce, which exhibits individuals.' Boswell. 
— ^ Did not he think of exhibiting you, sir ?' Johnson. — * Sir, 
fear restrained him ; he knew I would have broken his bones, 
I would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg ; I 
would not have left him a leg to cut off.' 

Few annals exist of the private life of Bubb Dodington, but 
those few are discreditable. 

32—2 



500 Wild Specimen of the Poet, 

Like most men of his time, and like many men of all times, 
Dodington was entangled by an unhappy and perplexing in- 
trigue. 

There was a certain ^ black woman/ as Horace Walpole calls 
a Mrs. Strawbridge, whom Bubb Dodington admired. This 
handsome brunette lived in a corner house of Saville Row, in 
Piccadilly, where Dodington visited her. The result of their 
intimacy was his giving this lady a bond of ten thousand pounds 
to be paid if he married any one else. The real object of his 
affections was a Mrs. Behan, with whom he lived seventeen 
years, and whom, on the death of Mrs. Strawbridge, he eventu- 
ally married. 

Among Bubb Dodington's admirers and disciples was Paul 
Whitehead, a wild specimen of the poet, rake, satirist, drama- 
tist, all in one ; and what was quite in character, a Templar 
to boot. Paul — so named from being born on that Saint's day 
— ^wrote one or two pieces which brought him an ephemeral 
fame, such as the ^ State Dunces,' and the ^Epistle to Dr. 
Thompson,' ^ Manners,' a satire, and the ' Gymnasiad,' a mock 
heroic poem, intended to ridicule the passion for boxing, then 
prevalent. Paul Whitehead, who died in 1774, was an infa- 
mous, but not, in the opinion of Walpole, a despicable poet, 
yet Churchill has consigned him to everlasting infamy as a re- 
probate, in these lines : — 

' May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall ?) 
Be born a Whitebread, and baptised a Paul.' 

Paul was not, however, worse than his satirist Churchill ; 
and both of these wretched men were members of a society 
long the theme of horror and disgust, even after its existence 
had ceased to be remembered, except by a few old people. 
This was the ' Hell-fire Club,' held in appropriate orgies at 
Medmenham Abbey, Buckinghamshire. The profligate Sir 
Francis Dashwood, Wilkes, and Churchill, were amongst its 
most prominent members. 

With such associates, and living in a court where nothing but 
the basest passions reigned and the lowest arts prevailed, we 
are inclined to accord with the descendant of Bubb Dodington, 



Walpole 071 Dodiiigtoiis ' Diary! 5 01 

the editor of his ^ Diary/ Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, who 
declares that all Lord Melcombe's political conduct was * wholly 
directed by the base motives of vanity, selfishness, and avarice.' 
Lord Melcombe seems to have been a man of the world of the 
very worst calibi-e; sensual, servile, and treacherous ; ready, 
during the lifetime of his patron, Frederick, Prince of Wales, 
to go any lengths against the adverse party of the Pelhams, that 
Prince's political foes — eager, after the death of Frederick, to 
court those powerful men with fawning servility. 

The famous ' Diary' of Bubb Dodington supplies the infor- 
mation from which these conclusions have been drawn. Ho- 
race Walpole, who knew Dodington well, describes how he read 
with avidity the ^ Diary,' which was published in 1784. 

*A nephew of Lord Melcombe's heirs has published that 
Lord's "Diary." Indeed it commences in 1749, and I grieve 
it was not dated twenty years later. However, it deals in topics 
that are twenty times more familiar and fresh to my memory 
than any passage that has happened within these six months. 
I wish I could convey it to you. Though drawn by his own 
hand, and certainly meant to. flatter himself, it is a truer por- 
trait than any of his hirelings would have given. Never was 
such a composition of vanity, versatility, and servility. \\\ 
short, there is but one feature wanting in it, his wit, of which 
in the whole book there are not three sallies.' 

The editor of this ' Diary' remarks, ' that he Avill no doubt 
be considered a very extraordinary editor ; the practice of whom 
has generally been to prefer flattery to truth, and partiality to 
justice.' To understand, not the flattery which his contempo- 
raries heaped upon Bubb Dodington, but the opprobrium with 
which they loaded his memory — to comprehend not his merits 
but his demerits — it is necessary to take a brief survey of his 
political life from the commencement. He began life, as we 
have seen, as a servile adherent of Sir Robert Walpole. A 
political epistle to the Minister was the prelude to a temporary 
alliance only, for in 1737, Bubb went over to the adverse parly 
of Leicester House, and espoused the cause of Frederick, Prince 
of Wales, against his royal father. He was therefore dismissed 
from the Treasur)\ Wlicn Sir Robert fell, Bubb expected to 



502 The Best Coinmentary on a Man's Life, 

rise, but his expectations of preferment were not realized. He 
attacked the new Administration forthwith, and succeeded so 
far in becoming important that he was made Treasurer of the 
Navy ; a post which he resigned in 1749, and which he held 
again in 1755, but which he lost the next year. On the acces- 
sion of George III., he was not ashamed to appear altogether 
in a new character, as the friend of Lord Bute ; he was, there- 
fore, advanced to the peerage by the title of Baron of Mel- 
combe Regis, in 1761. The honour was enjoyed for one short 
year only; and on the 28th of July, 1762, Bubb Dodington 
expired. Horace Walpole, in his ' Royal and Noble Authors,' 
complains that ' Dodington's " Diary" was mangled, in com- 
pliment, before it was imparted to the public' We cannot 
therefore judge of what the * Diary' was before, as the editor 
avows that every anecdote was cut out, and all the little gossip 
so illustrative of character and manners which would have 
brightened its dull pages, fell beneath the power of a merciless 
pair of scissors. Mr. Penruddocke Wyndham conceives, how- 
ever, that he was only doing justice to society in these sup- 
pressions. ^ It would,' he says, ^ be no entertainment to the 
reader to be informed who daily dined with his lordship, or 
whom he daily met at the table of other people.' 

Posterity thinks differently : a knowledge of a man's asso- 
ciates forms the best commentary on his life ; and there is much 
reason to rejoice that all biographers are not like Mr. Penrud- 
docke Wyndham. Bubb Dodington, more especially, was a 
man of society : inferior as a literary man, contemptible as a 
politician, it was only at the head of his table that he was 
agreeable and brilliant. He was, in fact, a man who had no 
domestic life : a courtier, like Lord Hervey, but without Lord 
Hervey's consistency. He was, in truth, a type of that era in 
England: vulgar in aims; dissolute in conduct; ostentatious, 
vain-glorious — of a low, ephemeral ambition ; but at the same 
time talented, acute, and lavish to the lettered. The public is 
now the patron of the gifted. What writer cares for individual 
opinion, except as it tends to sweep up the gross amount of pub- 
lic blame or censure ? What publisher will consent to under- 
take a work because some lord or lady recommended it to his 



Leicester House. 503 

notice ? The reviewer is greater in the commonwealth of letters 
than the man of rank. 

But in these days it was otherwise ; and they who, in the 
necessities of the times, did what they could to advance the 
interest of the belles lettres, deserve not to be forgotten. 

It is with a feeling of sickness that we open the pages of 
this great Wit's ' Diary,' and attempt to peruse the sentences in 
which the most gtesping selfishness is displayed. We follow 
him to Leicester House, that ancient tenement — (wherefore 
pulled down, except to erect on its former site the narrowest of 
streets, does not appear) : that former home of the Sydneys 
had not always been polluted by the dissolute, heartless clique 
who composed the court of Frederick, Prince of Wales. Its 
chambers had once been traversed by Henry Sydney, by Al- 
gernon, his brother. It was their ho77ie — their father, Robert 
Sydney, Earl of Leicester, having lived there. The lovely 
Dorothy Sydney, Waller's Saccharissa, once, in all purity and 
grace, had danced in that gallery where the vulgar, brazen Lady 
Middlesex, and her compliant lord, afterwards flattered the 
weakest of princes, Frederick. In old times Leicester House 
had stood on Lammas land — land in the spirit of the old 
charities, open to the poor after Lammas-tide ; and even * the 
Right Hon. the Earl of Leicester' — as an old document hath it 
— was obliged, if he chose to turn out his cows or horses on 
that appropriated land, to pay a rent for it to the overseers of 
St. Martin's parish, then really ' in the fields.' And here this 
nobleman not only dwelt in all state himself, but let, or lent his 
house to persons whose memory seems to hallow even Leicester 
Fields. Elizabeth of Bohemia, after what was to her indeed 
* life's fitful fever,' died at Leicester House. It became then, 
temporarily, the abode of ambassadors. Colbert, in the time 
of Charles IL, occupied the place; Prince Eugene, in 17 12, 
held his residence here ; and the rough soldier, famous for all 
absence of tact — brave, loyal-hearted, and coarse — lingered at 
Leicester House in hopes of obstructing tlie peace between 
England and France. 

All that was good and great fled for ever froni Leicester 
House at the instant that George II., when Prince of Wales, 



504 Grace Boyle, 

was driven by his royal father from St. James's, and took up 
his abode in it until the death of George I. The once 
honoured home of the Sydneys henceforth becomes loathsome 
in a moral sense. Here WilHam, Duke of Cumberland — the 
hero, as court flatterers called him — the butcher, as the poor 
Jacobite designated him — of Culloden, first saw the light. 
Peace and respectabiHty then dignified the old house for 
ever. Prince Frederick was its next inmate : here the 
Princess of Wales, the mother of George III., had her lyings- 
in, and her royal husband held his public tables; and at 
these and in every assembly, as well as in private, one figure 
is conspicuous. 

Grace Boyle — for she unworthily bore that great name — • 
was the daughter and heiress of Richard, Viscount Shannon. 
She married Lord Middlesex, bringing him a fortune of thirty 
thousand pounds. Short, plain, ' very yellow,' as her contempo- 
raries affirm, with a head full of Greek and Latin, and devoted 
to music and painting ; it seems strange that Frederick should 
have been attracted to one far inferior to his own princess both 
in mind and person. But so it was, for in those days every 
man liked his neighbour's wife better than his own. Imitating 
the forbearance of her royal mother-in-law, the princess 
tolerated such of her husband's mistresses as did not interfere in 
politics : Lady Middlesex was the ' my good Mrs. Howard,' 
of Leicester House. She was made Mistress of the Robes : 
her favour soon ^grew,' as the shrewd Horace remarks, ^to 
be rather more than Platonic' She lived with the royal pair 
constantly, and sat up till five o'clock in the morning at 
their suppers ; and Lord Middlesex saw and submitted to all 
that was going on with the loyalty and patience of a Georgian 
courtier. Lady Middlesex was a docile politician, and on that 
account, retained her position probably long after she had lost 
her influence. 

Her name appears constantly in the ' Diary,' out of which 
everything amusing has been carefully expunged. 

' Lady Middlesex, Lord Bathurst, Mr. Breton, and I, waited 
on their Royal Highnesses to Spitalfields, to see the manu- 
facture of silk.' In the afternoon off went the same party to 



Elegant Modes of Passing Life, 505 

Norwood Forest, in private coaches, to see a 'settlement of 
gypsies.' Then returning, went to find out Bettesworth, the 
conjuror; but not discovering him, went in search of the 
^ little Dutchman. Were disappointed in that ; but ' concluded,' 
relates Bubb Dodington, * the peculiarities of this day by 
supping with Mrs. Cannon, the princess's midwife' 

All these elegant modes of passing the time were not only 
for the sake of Lady Middlesex, but, it was said, of her friend, 
Mrs. Granville, or^e of the Maids of Honour, daughter of the 
first Lord Lansdown, the poet This young lady, Eliza Gran- 
ville, was scarcely pretty : a far, red-haired girl. 

All this thoughtless, if not culpable, gallantry was abruptly 
checked by the rude hand of death. During the month of 
March, Frederick was attacked with illness, having caught 
cold. Very little apprehension was expressed at first, but, 
about eleven days after his first attack, he expired. Half an 
hour before his death, he had asked to see some friends, and 
had called for coffee and bread and butter : a fit of coughing 
came on, and he died instantly from suffocation. An abscess, 
which had been forming in his side, had burst \ nevertheless, 
his two physicians, Wilmot and Lee, 'knew nothing of his 
distemper.' According to Lord Melcombe, who thus refers to 
their blunders, ' They declared, half an hour before his death, 
that his pulse was like a man's in perfect health. They either 
would not see or did not know the consequences of the black 
thrush, which appeared in his mouth, and quite down in his 
throat. Their ignorance, or their knowledge of his disorder, 
renders them equally inexcusable for not calling in other 
assistance.' 

The consternation in the prince's household was great, not 
for his life, but for the confusion into which politics were 
thrown by his death. After his relapse, and until just before 
his death, the princess never suffered any English, man or 
woman, above the degree of valet-de-chambre to see him ; nor 
did she herself see any one of her household until absolutely 
necessary. After the death of his eldest born, George H. 
vented his diabolical jealousy upon the cold remains of one 
thus cut off in the prime of life. The funeral was ordered to 



5o6 A Sad Day. 

be on the model of that of Charles II., but private counter- 
orders were issued to reduce the ceremonial to the smallest 
degree of respect that could be paid. 

On the 13th of April, 175 1, the body of the prince was 
entombed in Henry VI I. 's chapel. Except the lords ap- 
pointed to hold the pall, and attend the chief mourner, when 
the attendants were called over in their ranks, there was not 
a single English lord, not one bishop, and only one Irish 
lord (Lord Limerick), and three sons of peers. Sir John 
Rushout and Dodington were the only privy counsellors who 
followed. It rained heavily, but no covering was provided 
for the procession. The service was performed without organ 
or anthem. ' Thus,' observes Bubb Dodington, ^ ended this 
sad day.* 

Although the prince left a brother and sisters, the Duke of 
Somerset acted as chief mourner. The king hailed the event 
of the prince's death as a relief, which was to render happy 
his remaining days ; and Bubb Dodington hastened, in a few 
months, to offer to the Pelhams ' his friendship and attachment' 
His attendance at court was resumed, although George II. 
could not endure him ; and the old Walpolians, nick-named 
the Black-tan, were also averse to him. 

Such were Bubb Dodington's actions. His expressions, on 
occasion of the prince's death, were in a very diiferent tone. 

^ We have lost,' he wrote to Sir Horace Mann, ' the delight 
and ornament of the age he lived in, — the expectations of the 
public: in this light I have lost more than any subject in 
England; but this is light, — public advantages confined to 
myself do not, ought not, to weigh with me. But we have lost 
the refuge of private distress — the balm of the afflicted heart 
the shelter of the miserable against the fury of private adversity ; 
the arts, the graces, the anguish, the misfortunes of society, 
have lost their patron and their remedy. 

^ I have lost my companion — my protector — the friend that 
loved me, that condescended to hear, to communicate, to share 
in all the pleasures and pains of the human heart : where the 
social affections and emotions of the mirid only presided with- 
out regard to the infinite disproportion of my rank and con- 



The Veteran Wit, Beau, and Politician. 507 

dition. This is a wound that cannot, ought not to heal. If 
I pretended to fortitude here, I should be infamous — a monster 
of ingratitude — and unworthy of all consolation, if I was not 
inconsolable.' 

* Thank you,' writes the shrewd Horace Walpole, addressing 
Sir Horace Mann, ' for the transcript from Bubb de Tristibiis, 
I will keep your secret, though I am persuaded that a man who 
had composed such a funeral oration on his master had himself 
fully intended that^its flowers should not bloom and wither in 
obscurity.' 

Well might George II., seeing him go to court say : ^ I see 
Dodington here sometimes, what does he come for ?' 

It was, however, clearly seen what he went for, when, in 
1753, two years after the death of his ^benefactor,' Dodington 
humbly offered His Majesty his services in the house, and ' five 
members,' for the rest of his life, if His Majesty would give Mr. 
Pelham leave to employ him for His Majesty's service. 
Nevertheless he continued to advise with the Princess of Wales, 
and to drop into her house as if it had been a sister's house — 
sitting on a stool near the fireside, and listening to her accounts 
of her children. 

In the midst of these intrigues for favour on the part of 
Dodington, Mr. Pelham died, and was succeeded by his brother, 
the Duke of Newcastle, the issue of whose administration is 
well known. 

In 1760 death again befriended the now veteran wit, beau and 
politician. George II. died ; and the intimacy which Doding- 
ton had always taken care to preserve between himself and the 
Princess of Wales, ended advantageously for him ; and he 
instantly, in spite of all his former professions to Pelham, 
joined hand and heart with that minister, from whom he 
obtained a peerage. This, as we have seen, was not long en- 
joyed. Lord Melcombe, as this able, intriguing man was now 
styled, died on the 28th of July, 1762 ; and with him termi- 
nated the short-lived distinction for which he had sacrificed 
even a decent pretext of principle and consistency. 

So general has been the tlie contemj)t felt for his charac tcr, 
that it seems almost needless to assert that Bubb Dodington 



5o8 Defend its froin our Executors and Editors. 

was eminently to be despised. Nothing much more severe can 
be said of him than the remarks of Horace Walpole — ^upon his 
' Diary / in which he observes that Dodington records httle 
but what is to his own disgrace ; as if he thought that the world 
would forgive his inconsistencies as readily as he forgave him- 
self. ^Had he adopted/ Horace well observes, * the French 
title " Confessions^''' it would have seemed to imply some kind 
of penitence.' 

But vain-glory engrossed him : ^ He was determined to raise 
an altar to himself, and for want of burnt offerings, lighted the 
pyre, like a great author (Rousseau), with his own character.' 

It was said by the same acute observer, both of Lord Her- 
vey and of Bubb Dodington, that they were the only two 
persons he ever knew that were always aiming at wit and never 
finding it.' And here, it seems, most that can be testified in 
praise of a heartless, clever man, must be summed up. 

Lord Melcombe's property, with the exception of a few lega- 
cies, devolved upon his cousin Thomas Wyndham, of Ham- 
mersmith, by whom his Lordship's papers, letters, and poems, 
were bequeathed to Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, with an 
injunction, that only such as ^ might do honour to his memory 
should be made public' 

After this, in addition to the true saying, defend us from our 
friends, one may exclaim, ' defend us from our executors and 
editors.' 




EILLING, PRINTER, GUILDFORD. 






BY THE SAME AUTHORS. 

(Uniform with the Present Work.) 
Illustrated by Charles Altamont Doyle and the Brothers Dalziel. 

THE QUEENS OF SOCIETY. 



CONTENTS. 

Sarah Duchess of Marlborough. 
Madame Roland. 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 
Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire. 
Letitia Elizabeth LAndon. (L. E. L) 
Madame de Sevigne. 
Sydney Lady Morgan. 
Jane Duchess of Gordon. 
Madame Recamier. 
Lady Hervey, 
Madame de Stael. 
Mrs. Thrale-Piozzi. 
Lady Caroline Lamb, 
Anne Seymour Damer. 
La Marquise du Deffand. 
Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu. 
Mary Countess of Pembroke. 
La Marquise de Maintenon. 



SFP 28 1345 



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